


what if i fall? (darling, what if you fly?)

by youngchopsticks



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Background Amaya Jiwe/Zari Tomaz - Freeform, F/F, Two Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-04-30 09:36:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 32,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14494095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youngchopsticks/pseuds/youngchopsticks
Summary: “They made you the lead in the play,” Ava pointed out.Sara bit her lip and saw the board, “Yeah. I don’t know how that happened,”“Well, this production is officially going to go down in flames.”orthe hsau where sara is the lead in the school play and ava is the play’s stage manager





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this was only supposed to be maybe 5000 words but oops its now like 30,000+ so i'll post it as a two-shot. its basically just a whole lot of sara pining over ava and the legends are of no help

“Yo, you should try out for the play,” Zari said as she stopped them and pointed to the news board.

“Sure.” Sara replied.

Both of them paused then laughed. Zari slapped Sara’s shoulder with the hand that wasn’t holding a binder. 

“As if.” Sara brushed it off as they continued walking down the hall. “The day I join the play, mark it down as the day I die,”

Both of them entered their government class and sat in the back next to Amaya and Nate.

“What’re you guys laughing about?” Nate asked, playfully pushing Zari’s chair so that it’d be further than where Zari would sit.

Zari flipped him off before fixing her chair and sitting down next to him, “We were talking about how funny it’d be if Sara joined the play,” 

Nate laughed out loud and Amaya snickered beside him as well. “Imagine the Sara Lance starring in the school play,” 

“No one would ever live it down,” Amaya added.

Sara put her feet up on the table and laughed along with her friends. 

“Hi guys!” Ray came in and sat in front of Nate, “What’s up?”

“Sara’s joining the school play.” Amaya stated.

“Oh.” Ray’s face grimaced, “Are you trying new things for senior year? I mean I support you but this is all so sudden.”

“It was a joke Ray, relax.” Zari assured.

Ray smiled again finally catching on the joke, “Oh I see. But they are looking for people, ever since Jane left last year no one’s been able to top her talent.”

“Well don’t expect me to do it, I’m not trying out.” Sara said as she balanced on two leg chairs while her legs are on the table.

Their teacher came into the room and eyed the group in the back, they’ve made quite the name for themselves in the four years they’ve been together. Sara’s been acquainted with names the kids call them; some kids call them rebels, some call them rejects, but most call them the legends. When they were in their sophomore year their old principal, Vandal Savage, was a harsh and violent man that they made it their goal to replace him, and they succeeded. They were the ones who drove him away and got him replaced with a better principal. Ever since then, people started calling them legendary, hence the legends.

(She always thought it was a stupid name but it stuck)

“Feet off the table Miss Lance.” Their teacher announced from the front of the class.

Sara let her legs fall off the table dramatically and leaned her whole body forward to slump on the desk. “They’re off,” 

“Thank you.” 

—

Sara untied her soccer cleats in the locker room, she was the only one left after practice because her coach wanted to see her.

Once she had packed and changed out of her practice jersey, she left the locker room and went to her coach’s room down the hall.

“You wanted to see me Rip?”

Rip glanced at her and motioned her to sit on one of his arm chairs. 

“Sara, you’re a great soccer player. The best student I’ve coached since I have started coaching. You’re a leader, a great team player and I’m very proud of you.” Rip praised tentatively.

Sara nodded along, unsure of where he’s going with this. 

“And you’re a senior this year but Gideon tells me that you’re lacking a credit to graduate.”

Sara’s eyes widened as she finally knew what he called her in for. “Damn it. I thought Gideon wouldn’t catch that.”

“Language Miss Lance.”

“She didn’t offer me art classes for my senior year and I was hoping I would graduate without taking another one. Why is she suddenly springing it on me now? It’s not like she doesn’t know I haven’t finished my credits, I thought she was going to let it slide or something.”

“Well she hoped you’d take the initiative. But you can’t graduate without it Sara, and your full ride to Starling City University won’t be available if they find out you didn’t finish with all your requirements.”

Sara sighed and sagged in her seat, “So what am I supposed to do? Did she say I could still change my elective?”

“Unfortunately not.” Rip frowned, “But there is something you can do.”

“What?”

Rip stared at her trying to convey his message and Sara sat up straight on her seat finally realizing what he meant, “No.”

“Now Sara I know you don’t like it but-“

“I won’t join the play coach, that’s out of the question.”

“Listen Sara, you just need the credit. And right now, this is your only option.”

“Can’t I just join the art club or something? There must be some other way, could I take an online class?”

“Art club doesn’t count, and the deadline for online classes passed a month ago.” 

Sara groaned loudly and threw herself back on the armchair, “Why are you telling me this and not Gideon?”

“She said you’d take the news better if it came from me,” 

Sara continued to stare at the ceiling, just a few hours ago she was joking with her friends on this topic, she can’t help but think that Karma came back to bite her hard. 

“Auditions are on Thursday and Friday, you’ll miss the first half of practice on each day but I’ll know where you’ll be so you’re excused.” Rip explained.

“And what if I don’t do this?” Sara asked as she pulled her body back forward. “The play’s going to coincide with my schedule for soccer, I won’t have anytime to practice.”

“You can’t graduate without it Sara and SCU will take back their scholarship.” Rip said empathetically, “And listen, you just need to be in it, you don’t need to be a lead or have lines.”

“Alright, so I need to try to be in it but not hard enough to actually do anything.” Sara said.

“Just breeze through it.”

“Half ass it. Okay.”

“I didn’t say that.” Rip smirked.

“Yea but it was implied.” 

“Get out of here,” Rip shooed her out, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

“Got it coach.”

Sara left his office and went to the student parking area to her car. She threw her bags in the trunk and left to go home.

Once she was home, she took a quick shower and then threw her textbooks on her desk. She worked on her homework for a while but decided she was bored and called Zari on her phone.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Zari answered on what probably was the last ring, her voice laced heavy with sleep.

“Shit, sorry Z, did I wake you?” Sara asked ready to end the call.

“Nah, you did me a favor by waking me up, I need to work on my program for compsci. What’s up?” 

“So Rip called me to his office today.” 

“I heard, I ran into Amaya alone after you guys’ practice and she mentioned it. Did something happen?” Zari’s voice turned into a concerned one.

Sara bit her lip and put her on speaker so that she could talk with her and scroll through her instagram, “No, nothing major. It’s just,” She stopped and sighed, “Remember today when you told me that I should join the play?”

“Sara that was a joke, please tell me you’re not actually considering doing that.” 

“Well Rip told me I kinda have to.” Sara bit her lip as she liked a bunch of random people’s photos.

“What do you mean?” She questioned further.

“He told me I lacked an art credit to graduate so I have to join the play to finish it.” Sara heard scrambling on Zari’s end of the call, she concluded that she’s probably getting up from bed, “Or else, my full ride to SCU is going to be withdrawn.”

“Oh dude, that sucks.” Zari apologized, “Damn. That really sucks, what would your reputation be after this. You should’ve just joined art with me this year.”

“Uh-huh. No thanks, I literally can only draw stick figures and that’s on good days.” Sara said, “Plus the art department hates me.”

Zari laughed and teased Sara, “Hey, at least you could’ve avoided doing the play, I’d take drawing a bunch of stick figures over embarrassing myself on stage any day.” 

“Fuck you.” Sara said half-heartedly, the line went quiet for a few seconds before she cuts it again, “So do you want to facetime and help me with my math problems?”

“Sure.” Zari answered, “And I’m going to help you through the play thing okay? It won’t be that bad, you’ll probably get cast as a background role. Don’t worry about it too much.”

“Yea.”

-

“You’re signing up for the what now?” Nate asked disbelievingly. 

Sara was writing her name on the audition list surrounded by Nate, Amaya and Mick. She told them that she had to sign up for the play and they’re all giving her concerned looks. 

“You’re going to sing and dance on stage boss?” Mick commented.

Sara tossed him a glare behind her shoulder as she finished writing her name in the sign up sheet on the drama department’s news board. She sighed, laid the pen down and faced her friends.

“It’s mandatory. I literally can’t graduate without this. Rip said ‘try hard enough to be in it but not enough that it will actually matter’ or something along those lines.” Sara quoted.

“Why didn’t you take an art class before this again?” Amaya questioned as they started walking to their next class.

“Oh you weren’t here but during freshman year, Sara helped Mick and Leo blow up the pottery making machine in the art class. Thousands of dollars lost from the art department.” Nate recounted the story.

“Was worth it.” 

“Leo, bless his soul wherever he is now, got expelled, Mick had suspension and I was kicked out of my art class and given a study hall period which served as detention. Gideon never advised me to take another art class but here we are.” Sara digressed.

They started to exchange stories from previous years until they parted ways to go to their different classes. Sara walked to her AP Statistics class, the only class that she regrets taking in her senior year due to the amount of unexpected work, and sat in her usual spot in the back left-hand corner of the class. 

One of the downsides of taking this class is that the class is filled with juniors and only a handful of seniors and they were all out of her social circle so she doesn’t really know them. The only other senior she talks to to discuss homework and projects with was Ava Sharpe.

Sara doesn’t know that much about Ava, just that she is probably in the top 1% of the school’s rankings and takes the most AP classes than what is probably possible. In theory Sara shouldn’t even know her but Ava was also one of the school’s star player for the cross country team, and Sara basically rules the athletic department so she knew who she was.

Occasionally Sara would show up early to the gym last season and the cross country team was stretching, that’s where she and Ava met last year. Sara smiled at the thought of their first interaction, Sara needed the gym for an emergency early practice but the cross country team had booked it first because it was too cold outside. Ava and her fought over that for months, and despised each other for a long time until one day they settled their differences and agreed to work together. Cross country season was over and since then Sara had only talked to Ava during their one shared class last year and this year.

Sara looked towards the door and saw Ava come in, they made eye contact and Sara gave a small smile that was returned with a curt nod as she went to her seat in the front of the class. She saw Ava open her notebook and decided to do the same.

Their teacher came in and they started taking notes, Sara fell asleep during the middle of it until the bell rang.

She stood up and cursed internally when she found out that she missed half of the notes for that night’s homework. She packed quickly and went to Ava’s desk.

“Hey Ava.” 

“Hello captain.” Ava replied out of habit referring to the status of leading her soccer team, “What can I do for you?”

“May I please take a picture of your notes, I sort of fell asleep halfway through this lecture.” Sara asked sheepishly.

Ava shook her head and rolled her eyes, “Of course.” She said sarcastically. Ava opened her notebook to the page and let Sara take a picture of them with her phone.

“Thanks Ava, I owe you one.” Sara thanked.

“It’s no problem, I honestly don’t know how you’re passing the class.” 

“It’s called winging it, you should try it sometime.” 

Ava scrunched her nose, “No thanks.”

“Alright I gotta go for lunch, see you?”

“Wait, are you really trying out for the play?” Ava stopped her from going out.

Sara’s eyes widened, and tried to think of who in her friend group would already spill the information out to their high school, but Ava interrupted her.

“Don’t worry, no one told me. I just saw your name in the audition list when I was signing up to be a backstage crew member.” 

“You’re going to be the crew?” Sara asked.

“I’ve been the crew’s stage manager for three years Sara.” Ava deadpans.

Sara felt guilty all of the sudden and laughed, “Of course. I knew that.” 

Ava shook her head and put the notebook in her bag, “Was it like a dare then?”

“No. I’m actually trying out because I need an art credit to graduate.” Sara explained.

Ava gave a silent acknowledgement and started to follow Sara out of their class, “Well for the sake of the play, I hope you won’t get casted as main.”

“Shut up. I’m a good actor.” Sara joked.

“Do you even know what production we’re doing?” Ava asked.

Sara thought of it for a second, she read it on the board this morning but forgot its name. Her hesitance to answer gave Ava the clue that she probably does not know.

“Figured.” Ava said, “It’s Peter Pan.”

“I knew that, it was coming to my mind.” Sara lied.

“You’re hopeless.” 

Sara smirked at that and said goodbye to Ava when she saw Zari at the end of the hallway. 

She ran to catch up to Zari and greeted her. Zari smiled and they walked to the cafeteria together and met with the others. 

“So Sara I heard from Nate that you are actually trying out for the play,” Ray pointed out, “Why the sudden change of heart?”

“I’m required to for my graduation.” Sara answered as she stuffed a tater tot in her mouth. 

“Wait, what about soccer?” Wally asked her.

“Rip said I can manage my time and I’ll mostly be excused because he knows where I’ll be. But I know I can’t be in two places at once.” Sara said sadly.

The group noticed the change in Sara’s tone and felt bad for their friend. Zari slapped her thigh from where she was sitting beside her, “It’s okay cap, maybe you’ll actually have fun doing the play.” 

“Yeah, it won’t be so bad.” Amaya added.

They took turns reassuring Sara that it’d be alright, and Sara felt better that she has a group of friends that is there to support her. 

“Thanks guys, first auditions are tomorrow tonight, will you guys stick around?” Sara asked.

A chorus of agreements sounded from the group and Sara smiled brightly.

When lunch was over, the rest of her day in school passed by quickly. After their last class, she invited Amaya to her house to peruse over scripts that she should use to audition for the play. Amaya accepted and both of them took their respective cars to go to Sara’s house.

They went inside and was greeted with Sara’s dad on the barstool of the kitchen island. 

“Hey dad.” Sara said.

“Hello, how was your day?” Quentin sat up from his seat and went to give Sara a hug, “Hello to you too Amaya.”

“Hi sir.” Amaya smiled politely. 

“It was good, Amaya’s here to help me pick stuff out to audition for the play.” Sara said.

“You’re auditioning for the play? How come I haven’t heard of this?” He asked stopping Sara and Amaya from going to Sara’s room.

“Because I only knew yesterday. Coach Rip told me I didn’t have enough art credits to graduate and the only way to gain it is by doing the play so,” Sara said open-endedly.

“Is this because of the pottery fiasco from three years ago?”

“Maybe.” Sara said innocently, “Gotta go, lots of stuff to do. Love you, bye.” 

“Alright. Have fun then.” He waved them off, “I’m going to be working late in the precinct, there’s leftovers in the fridge but I’ll leave money on the table if you girls want pizza.” 

“Thanks dad!” Sara called out from her room.

After they closed the door to Sara’s room, Amaya sat cross legged on Sara’s bed while Sara sat on her desk chair, “I don’t know why you asked me to help, I know next to nothing about plays.”

“I would’ve asked Zari but she had the thing with her brother, Ray’s probably in the school lab again, Nate has a college thing, Wally has a basketball game and Mick’s out of the question.” Sara listed all their friends and Amaya scoffed.

“Nice to know I’m your last resort then,” 

“Shut up, you’re not.”

They began to look over stuff but both of them realized that they’re out of their territory and Sara doesn’t know what to do or how long the audition has to be. After about an hour of useless research, Sara sighed and dramatically closed her laptop.

“I give up.” She groaned as she stood to walk to her bed and purposefully landed on Amaya.

Sara heard Amaya shriek and felt her try to push her off to the other side of the bed, “Get off of me Sara,” 

They both laughed as Sara rolled off of Amaya, “Sorry.” 

“No you’re not.”

“No I’m not.”

Amaya sat up, closed her laptop and set it on Sara’s bedside table. She slapped Sara’s back and lied down on her stomach like Sara did.

Sara was looking over her snapchat stories and Amaya decided to watch her, “I still hate the new update.”

“I’ve gotten used to it.” Sara murmured, “Wouldn’t complain if they’d change it back though.”

They saw random people’s stories and laughed at some of them. Sara clicked on the next story and it was Gary Green’s, she saw a picture of him, Ava, John Constantine and people she doesn’t recognize at Big Belly Burger. 

“Who’s that?” Amaya asked.

Sara clicked through the picture and the next one was of a burger and Gary’s heart bitmoji. “This is Gary Green, he’s also senior, he was in my last year pre-calculus class.” 

“Ah, the one where you, Zari and Nate cracked the poor teacher’s whiteboard by throwing a water bottle across the room?” 

“The same one.” 

“Who was he with, why do I recognize them?” Amaya asked as she took Sara’s phone and replayed Gary’s story.

“I only know Ava Sharpe and the one beside Gary is John Constantine, and I think that one might be Leah, Ella’s sister from the team.” 

“John Constantine as in college boy John Constantine, your ex John Constantine?” Amaya smirked as she studied the photo.

“He’s not my ex okay? Just because we hooked up once or twice since the halloween party last year doesn’t mean we were anything.” Sara took back her phone and went out of Snapchat, “And besides from Gary’s stories I think they’re together or at least like each other now.” 

Amaya hummed and changed her position so that her head was laying on Sara’s back. “And who was the other one, Ava Sharpe?”

“Yeah. She was the one we got into the argument over the gym thing last year, called her a bitch in front of her face once.” Sara recounted, “We raced each other but finished at the same time, you know, that Ava.”

“I remember now, she visited you in the hospital when you got that concussion.” Amaya smirked, “Wait, isn’t she part of the school play?” 

“Uh-huh, she told me today that she was stage manager.” Sara answered.

“You should text her, invite her over. She has experience in these things, maybe she’ll help you.” Amaya encouraged.

“Uh I don’t know her that well, and you saw his story just now, they were at Big Belly Burger.” Sara countered.

Sara felt Amaya move from her back and placed herself in front of Sara’s face, “Sara, auditions are tomorrow. It’s already five pm and you have nothing. I’m no help to you. At least call her and tell her your situation,” 

Sara sighed and sat up as well, she knew Amaya was right. And no one in their group has any experience around drama stuff, on one hand she didn’t want to disturb Ava but she knows she has to. She looked at Amaya and she was staring at her holding her phone out on Ava’s contact number that she acquired last year.

“Fine. I’ll call her.” Sara took the phone from Amaya’s hand and she smiled.

“I’m going to order us pizza from the kitchen while you do that.” Amaya scooted out from the bed and went out of the room.

Sara pressed the call button on Ava’s number and waited for it to ring.

When she picked up Sara waited a bit then said, “Hello?” 

“Hey Sara. Did you need something for the statistics homework?”

“No, no, actually I called for something else.” Sara started.

“Oh okay, sure. What is it?”

Sara could hear Ava shushing her friends in the background and smiled when she heard John shouting hello from the other side of the table probably.

“Ignore them, Sara. What do you need?” Ava said as the background noise faded, and Sara assumed she left the table.

“Well you know how I’m auditioning for the play?” Sara played with the loose strings of her blanket, “I don’t actually know what to prepare or how long it needs to be or anything of the sort.”

Ava hummed in acknowledgement and Sara continued, “I was wondering if you’d help me prepare something if you’re free later, I know you’re with Gary and John, and you don’t have to or anything. I just,” Sara paused and thought about how she wanted to say it but Ava cut her off.

“Need my expertise?”

Sara giggled, “You could say that.” 

Ava mirrored Sara’s laugh and responded, “Yea I’m out right now but I can be there around seven if you want. I’ll bring some scripts and you can choose.”

“Really? Thank you so much.” Sara exclaimed.

“It’s no problem, I’ll see you later?” 

“Yea, I’ll text you my address.”

“Perfect. Bye.

“Bye.” 

Sara smiled as she ended the call and couldn’t stop the grin on her face from appearing as she typed out her address to Ava. Ava responded with a thanks and a smiley face which made Sara smile wider.

“What’s gotten you so happy?” 

Sara looked up and saw Amaya standing by the door frame, she quickly got rid of her smile and smirked instead. “Nothing.” 

“You call Ava?” 

“Yeah, she’s coming around seven.” 

“That’s good. Do you want me to stay or leave you two alone?” 

“You can stay ‘maya,” 

“Alright.” Amaya said in a sing-song voice, “I called the pizza, it’ll be here in an hour.” 

“Good, you want to work on the government homework?”

“Sure.” 

The pizza came right around the time that they both finished all their homework for the day. Sara paid the guy and tipped him before bringing the pizza back to her room where Amaya was packing her stuff up.

“Pizza is here.” Sara announced as she closed the door with her foot.

“Thank god, I’m starving.” Amaya took the pizza from her and set it down on the floor. They opened up Netflix on Sara’s laptop and ate the pizza until Sara noticed that it was almost seven.

“Oh shit, Ava’s coming soon.” She stood up and wiped her greasy hand on her jeans.

Amaya watched her as she took in the state of her room. There was dirty laundry everywhere and her school books were taking up half the space of the floor and all the space of her desk, and there were mugs and bottles around every corner of the room.

“Your room looks fine.” Amaya said as she took a bite of her pizza.

“Fine?” Sara retorted, “I have to clean this up, you can continue eating.” 

Amaya didn’t respond as Sara began to throw her dirty laundry to the hamper in her adjacent bathroom. She was in the middle of getting a notebook under her desk when the doorbell sounded, it surprised her enough that she hit her head on her desk, “Motherfucker.” She muttered.

She heard a giggle from the back of her head and crawled out from under her desk, “Don’t laugh.” 

Amaya was standing in the middle of the room with the finished pizza box, “Go answer that door. I’ll take care of stuff here, stall her for a minute.” 

Sara looked around her room, unconvinced that Amaya could tidy it up in a minute. She was cut off from looking as Amaya took her hand and pushed her out the door, “I got you. Just answer the door.” 

Sara sighed but trudged towards the front door anyway as Amaya closed her room. Sara walked slowly down the stairs, and she could see the outline of a person through the glass.

She smiled when she opened the door and found Ava holding a folder, and wearing something different when she saw her last on Gary’s story. She had changed into a black shirt that had a logo that Sara hadn’t seen before and a brown jacket that was half unzipped with the same pair of jeans. 

Sara realized that she’d been staring and blinked away, “Sorry, hi. Come in,” 

Ava laughed lightly and went by Sara to stand in their foyer. “Hi.” 

Sara rocked on her feet nervously and gestured to her house, “Welcome, this is my house.”

“I see that.” Ava used her free hand to brush some hair from her face.

Sara found that adorable, they stood there for some time as she knowingly gave Amaya time to clean up her room. “Do you want water or anything?”

“No I’m fine, are we gonna-” Ava put up her folder and what Sara assumed are her scripts.

“Yea, should we go-” Sara pointed to the stairs.

“If you want-” 

“Yea, I’ll just- yea, let’s just go to my room,” Sara stuttered as she led Ava to her room slowly.

“Lead the way.” 

As they went up the stairs, the thought of Amaya being there came to mind and she said, “I don’t know if you know Amaya Jiwe, but she’s also here- helping I mean. She’s helping me do the thing,”

Sara mumbled through the last words as Ava breathed out another laugh, she doesn’t know why she seems to not function around Ava. Last year when they started to become acquaintances, she just guessed that she doesn’t know how to act around Ava because she was enemies’ with her first and now that they’re somewhat friends, she doesn’t actually know how to treat her.

“Yea, I know her. She’s your teammate right?”

“She’s vice-captain, yea.” Sara said as she led her to her room and prayed that Amaya had enough time to at least make the room look decent.

She opened the door and found a clean room with Amaya sitting on her bed near the wall using her earphones plugged into her phone.

“Hi Amaya.” Ava said from beside her.

“Hello Ava,” She greeted enthusiastically, “I hope you can help Sara with her problem, I tried but I don’t know anything about this stuff.” 

“Yea, don’t worry. I’ll get it done.” Ava replied as she set her folder down on the now empty desk.

“That’s good to hear,” Amaya let her legs dangle off the bed, “You know what, I need to video call Zari for our project, if you need me I’ll be in the living room downstairs, that okay Sara?”

“Yea sure.” Sara silently glared at her where Ava can’t see, and Amaya smirked back.

“Have fun.” Amaya said as she took Sara’s laptop from the floor and closed the door, leaving Ava and Sara alone in her room.

“Uh, where do we start?” Sara turned back to Ava where she was intently looking at a picture of her, Laurel and Oliver when they were kids, “That’s my sister, Laurel, and our friend, Oliver.”

“I didn’t know the infamous Sara Lance has a sister,” 

“Had. She died.”

“Oh I’m sorry Sara, how’d she die?”

Sara hesitated a bit before answering, “She went to a roadtrip with Oliver and his friends, he graduated from our school too and is in college now, but anyway they went to a roadtrip and apparently they had a disagreement and Laurel, she uh, stormed out of their hotel and never came back.”

Sara paused as she also began staring at the picture of her and Laurel. “She was found by the local police the next morning in an alley, they said she was caught up in the middle of a gang fight.”

“Sara, I’m sorry.” Ava pursed her lips and went closer to Sara, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder, “I shouldn’t have pried,”

“It’s okay, that was three years ago, I’m fine now. She was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.” Sara looked up at Ava and found softness in her eyes and a small smile staring back at her, “Should we look over the scripts?”

“Yea, sorry, I felt like I ruined the mood.”

“We had a mood going?” Sara joked.

“No, that’s not what I- you know what I meant,” Ava blushed.

Sara laughed and found that she was thankful that Ava asked about her sister, conversation seemed easy to flow after Sara opened up about it to Ava. 

They spent time looking over some scripts and Sara laughed at some of the options as Ava explained that they were from critically acclaimed playwrights, Sara countered that she thought they were written by a horny fifteen year old boy. By the time Sara actually chose her audition piece, she hadn’t notice an hour has gone by.

“So you’re going for this monologue from Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen?” Ava asked one last time as she put the others back in her binder.

“Yea, I feel like it captures my intensity.” Sara said.

“Okay well, it’s getting late.” Ava noticed, “I should get going.” 

Sara looked at the digital clock on her bedside table and agreed with Ava, “Yeah, you should go before it gets too dark.” Hiding the disappointment on her voice that Ava was leaving.

Once Ava got everything packed back into her folder, she opened her bedroom door and escorted Ava to her front door. Sara briefly remembered that Amaya was still in her house when she saw Amaya’s car still in her driveway, she felt bad for Amaya but she was sure Amaya would understand. 

“Well thank you for- you know, everything.” Sara said when they were back in the foyer. “I owe you two now,” 

Ava giggled softly and looked to the floor, she brushed the hair that fell on her face and replied, “It’s really no problem Sara, I’m glad I could help.” 

Sara smiled and opened the door for Ava, Ava stepped through and gave a small wave. Sara put up her hand as a goodbye and closed the door when she saw Ava safe in her car.

“Wow, I was right.” A voice startled her from behind. She turned around and found Amaya in the hallway leading to the living room staring at her with a shit-eating smirk on her face.

“What do you mean?” Sara asked, confused.

“I mean that my guess was correct, you like her.” Amaya teased wiggling a finger in Sara’s direction while walking slowly towards her.

“What? N-no I don’t. What’re you talking about?” Sara stammered nervously.

Amaya licked her lips and continued to walk to Sara as she pressed her finger on Sara’s chest, “You have a crush on her.” 

Sara looked at her best friend nervously and shook her head, “Shut up nerd, no I don’t.”

Amaya hummed and said, “I heard you two laughing upstairs and you can’t even make a coherent sentence around her, and all this smiling and giggling thing isn’t you.”

“That’s because I don’t know how to act around her you know, like we hated each other all last year because of that stupid gym thing, and now that we’re friends - I think - I don’t know how to make decent conversation with her.” Sara argued.

Amaya stepped back and put her arm down, she still had a smirk on her face and she narrowed her eyes on Sara, “Sure, whatever you say.”

Sara breathed out sigh, she truthfully doesn’t know how she feels about Ava. A small part in her mind wants Amaya to be right, that she probably is acting like this because she likes Ava, but the more rational part of her brain is telling her that Ava is probably straight and has a boyfriend she doesn’t know about.

“Are you staying over then?” Sara asked when they were on the stairs, climbing up to Sara’s room.

“Probably, I’m too tired to drive back.” Amaya shrugged, “I’ll call my mom in a bit.”

When they got back to Sara’s room, Sara excused herself to shower in her bathroom as Amaya phoned her mom. In the shower, she thought a lot about what Amaya revealed to her. In the time that she’s known Amaya, she probably has never seen Sara act the way she does around Ava with anyone. She recalled the way that she was around Nyssa back when Amaya wasn’t in school yet, and some of the feelings mirrored the way she felt about Ava right now. Sara shook the feeling off and concluded that she probably doesn’t like her, and that Amaya was wrong.

She finished her shower, dried off and put on a sleep shirt and short pants. She put a small towel around her shoulder to let her hair air dry and went back to her room. She found Amaya sitting on her bed facetiming someone.

Amaya noticed Sara come in and motioned her to come over, Sara sat beside her and smiled when she saw Zari’s face, “Hi Zari.”

“Hello Sara,” Zari taunted, “I heard you had a crush on someone.”

Sara scrunched her face and slapped Amaya’s shoulder, “I do not, Amaya’s lying to you.”

Amaya feigned being in pain and slapped her back, “When have I ever lied to you Z?”

“Amaya does have a point Sara, you’ve lied to me more times than Amaya ever has,” Zari pointed out.

“Fuck you Tomaz.” 

“Love you Cap, listen I gotta go but you guys have fun.” Zari waved goodbye before ending their call.

Sara rolled her eyes when Amaya was still smiling at her, “Are you going to let this go?”

“Nope, unless it really does bother you and you can say with hundred percent sincerity that you don’t have any feelings for Ava.” Amaya’s voice turned into a serious one, her grin no longer there replaced instead with a worried face.

Sara thought for a bit before breaking their eye contact and looking towards the ceiling instead, she sighed and answered, “I don’t know okay? Can we just drop it for now?”

“Okay.” Amaya slid an arm around her shoulders and Sara leaned into her best friend, “In my defense, I told you so.”

Sara lightly slapped her stomach as Amaya laughed and gave a small kiss on top of Sara’s head.

“Thank you for cleaning my room by the way, how’d you get it done so fast?”

“Let’s just say don’t look under your bed,”

Sara laughed and did just that, she found all her textbooks and bottles and other items stuffed haphazardly under it but made no movement to actually clean it, “I’ll deal with it tomorrow.”

After that, Amaya went to shower and came back wearing Sara’s pyjamas. Sara practiced her script with Amaya until she felt good to perform it then they both fell asleep.

-

The next day after school, her friends sans Amaya and Wally due to sports practice were in the auditions with her as moral support. Since she was the last person to audition, they were the only ones left in the hallway.

“Hey, you got this. From what I heard at lunch, your audition piece is great, and I mean you’re just great in general.” Zari said encouragingly.

“Kick some ass Captain.” Mick added in.

“We’ll be here when you’re done then after practice we can all go to dinner somewhere to celebrate okay?” Ray smiled brightly.

“I still have the singing and dance audition tomorrow.” Sara said.

“Well then we’ll get dinner tomorrow as well, don’t worry. Just worry about this for now okay?” Nate gestured with his hand to the hall.

“Okay, thank you guys.” Sara smiled.

Another five minutes passed of mindless talking to get Sara distracted from her worry until a teacher came out from the room and called her up, “Sara Lance, we’re ready for you.”

With one last round of encouragements, Sara left her friends and went inside the audition room to perform her piece.

She had no time to prepare last night but Sara has a good memory so she recanted her piece with as much emotion as she could and recalled Ava’s advice to feel the character. Sara would occasionally look at the teachers’ faces but she couldn’t tell what they were feeling. 

Once she finished the teachers who were judging the auditions talked amongst themselves and faced back to Sara.

“That was great Ms. Lance,” One of them said. “Are you going to be in tomorrow’s audition as well?”

“Yes sir.” Sara answered.

“Well we’ll see you tomorrow then, great job today.” 

Sara smiled amiably and ducked out of the room, she found her friends sitting on the floor just outside of the room and they all stood up when they saw Sara going out.

“How’d it go? Did they like it? Did they say anything? Did you get the part?” Ray asked rapidly.

Sara was taken aback by Ray’s enthusiasm and Nate put a hand on his shoulder to calm him, “Woah there Ray, with those questions it’s almost like you’re the one that auditioned.”

Sara laughed at Ray’s attitude and answered him, “It was good, I think they liked it, well they said they liked it and there’s one more audition tomorrow.”

“Oh okay,” Ray smiled, “I’m proud of you Sara.”

“We all are Cap.” Zari interjected.

Sara continued smiling and looked at the clock, she was ten minutes late than when Rip told her she’d be done so she thanked her friends and ran across campus to the field’s girl’s locker room.

She changed quickly and met the rest of the soccer team on the field. Rip caught her up to speed and she began practicing.

When they were on their break, Amaya approached her and asked, “How did auditions go?”

“Good, I think I did well.”

“Are you ready for tomorrow’s?” Amaya asked after she drank her water. 

“Yea, I’m just going to dance a bit from what I remember from my elementary and middle school days of dance classes and sing a song.” Sara assured Amaya.

They both finished practice and went out of the field together, Sara was texting the group chat to meet at the student parking lot while Amaya and her walked there together. Sara informed Amaya that Ray wanted to eat dinner together and she agreed.

They reached the parking lot to find them all sitting on the back of Mick’s truck. 

“What is this? The fucking 90’s? Ya’ll look like cool kid wannabes.” Sara teased when she got within earshot from them.

“Isn’t that what we are though cap? Cool kid wannabes?” Nate commented.

“Fair enough. Where’re we eating at?” Sara looked around the group.

“Well Nate and I want sushi, but Ray, Wally and Mick wants burgers.” Zari stated, “What do you and Amaya want?”

“I’m up for anything you guys decide,” Amaya said indifferently, “But decide quickly, I have a project I need to finish.”

“Well it’s up to you Cap,” Wally smiled.

“I vote that we go for burgers today and sushi tomorrow, how does that sound?” Sara compromised. 

They all agreed with Sara’s decision and got off Mick’s truck to go to their cars. Sara went out of her parking first to lead the group to the burger place. It was a short drive and once they all parked and sat on a big booth, Sara put her head on her hands and sighed.

“You okay Sara?” 

“I’m fine, just stressed a bit.” Sara answered truthfully to Zari.

“Want to talk about it?” Nate asked from the end of the table.

“It’s just, what if I don’t make it? Even as a background character. They can’t exactly give me a role just because I need it you know? Never mind, don’t worry about it.”

“No that’s a valid reason to worry Sara.” Amaya put a comforting hand on her thigh, “You’ll get it though, I’m sure of it.”

“Yea, I trust you.” Sara smiled and removed the worry on her face, “So Wally, I heard you took the win in yesterday’s game.” 

Wally beamed and started to tell his story, the team spent an hour eating and laughing with each other. And for a while, Sara didn’t have the worry about the play on her mind.

They dispersed when Amaya told them that she still had a project to finish, and everyone agreed that they needed to go back.

When Sara arrived home, she was thankful that she didn’t have homework that are due tomorrow. She began trying to choreograph a two minute dance for tomorrow’s audition. Once she was satisfied that it wasn’t total trash, she checked her phone.

She noticed that it was already nine at night and she had over forty messages on the team’s group chat. She skimmed over them and snickered at the meme Nate sent to them. She went out of the messages but noticed that there were still three unread ones.

She opened the notice board on her phone and saw a message from her dad saying that he’d be staying late, and two from Ava.

Sara quickly replied to her dad that she already ate, and then opened her chat with Ava.

[Ava]: Hey.  
[Ava]: How did the audition go?

Sara smiled at Ava’s texts, she didn’t think that Ava would care about her audition. Sara noticed that it was sent two hours ago and hesitated on texting back because it was already late in the night. She decided that she would reply anyway.

[Sara]: Hi, it went good.  
[Sara]: I think. They said they liked it.

Sara waited for a few seconds and didn’t see the three bubble of the text message. Sara thought that Ava was probably already asleep. She put her phone down and went to shower.

When she came back from the shower there was two more messages from Ava.

[Ava]: That’s good.  
[Ava]: You’re welcome btw. ;) 

Sara giggled at the use of a winky face. She texted her back a thank you and Ava responded faster than last time. They exchanged more text messages and before long, Sara found herself enjoying texting Ava. They talked about their teacher in statistics, and Ava revealed that it was also hard for her to stay awake in that class. Sara laughed and giggled more times than what was normal for her, but ever since Amaya’s conversation about her having a crush on Ava, Sara can’t help but think that there is something there.

The problem is that she doesn’t know if it’s reciprocated.

When Ava’s text start to slow, Sara was the one to end their conversation sensing that Ava didn’t want to be the first to back out of the texting. Sara looked at the time again and saw that it was way late in the night.

She packed her stuff for tomorrow quickly, turned off her desk lamp and went to sleep.

The next morning, Sara put on clothes that she can move easily in for the dancing part of her audition. When she got into her car, Zari called her.

“Hey, have you left your house yet?” Zari asked her.

“About to, why?”

“Can you come over and pick me up?”

“Sure.” 

Sara looked at the time and was thankful that she woke up a bit early, she drove the extra ten minutes to Zari’s house and found her sitting on the curb. 

Zari unceremoniously opened her car door with a bit more force than necessary, chucked her bag to the back seat and sat with a huff. Sara stared at her friend concern.

“You okay?” 

“Just drive,” Zari put her hand on the door and massaged her head, “Please,”

“Alright.”

Sara saw Zari put her car’s music in a low volume and became even more concerned for her friend. She usually doesn’t mind her loud music blasting in her car, and they would sing along sometimes. She could tell that something was upsetting her but didn’t want to pry, she would tell her when she’s ready.

When they arrived at school, Zari bolted out of Sara’s car muttering a small thanks and about how she’s needed in the computer lab. Sara didn’t stop her, instead she took her time getting out of her car. She walked in the parking lot and saw Ava sitting in her car.

Sara smiled and walked over to her. She knocked on the window and smiled. The reaction she got has her giggling as Ava got startled from looking down at her phone, but smiled back when she saw Sara.

Ava took her bag from the passenger seat and opened the door. 

“Don’t scare me like that,” She said.

“Morning to you too,” Sara replied.

Ava rolled her eyes and asked, “How are you? Ready for audition day two?” 

“I’m a bit tired but I’m ready.” 

“That’s good,” 

Sara and Ava walked together to the front of the school until they had to split up to go to their first class. Sara’s first class was with Amaya and Nate, they sat in a desk group of four with one empty seat beside Nate.

She sat in her usual seat and not long after, Nate and Amaya walked in together. 

“Mornin’ Cap.” Nate greeted. 

Sara gave a two finger salute and patted Amaya’s back when she sat down beside her, “Good morning Amaya,”

Amaya gave a slight smile and hummed at Sara. Sara silently gestured at Nate to explain what’s happening but Nate shrugged then typed something on his phone. After he finished he pointed to Sara’s phone on the table discreetly and Sara checked it.

[Nate]: shes been in a mood all morning, idk whats up with ehr  
[Nate]: *her  
[Sara]: Z’s in a mood too, picked her up for school this morning and she didnt seem happy  
[Sara]: related?  
[Nate]: possibly? doesnt she usually carpool with amaya? she lives closer  
[Sara]: valid point. we’ll see it out  
[Nate]: ok cap

Sara put down her phone the same time that their english teacher started class. 

The rest of the day passed by quickly because the weird rift between Amaya and Zari kept them on edge. Everyone seemed to have something going on at lunch so Sara was left to eat alone with Mick at their usual table. 

When the last bell of the day rang, Sara walked alone to the audition room opting to not have the team there for the second day, and to just meet up at the sushi place after. When she arrived in the hall, there were a couple other students sitting around in the area, some Sara recognized and some not.

She was about to put earphones in her ear when she heard a familiar voice coming out of a nearby classroom. Ava came out of the room talking with a teacher and Sara looked at her. Ava caught her sight and smiled to acknowledge her.

Sara waited until she saw Ava finish her talk with the teacher to walk over to her, “Hey!”

“Hi,” Ava greeted back with as much enthusiasm, “You ready?”

“A little nervous but I’ll be fine.” Sara smiled.

“That’s good.” Ava bit her lip and looked at the floor, “Do you want me to stay until you finish?”

Sara was surprised at Ava’s question and she noticed Ava was about to retract what she said but Sara beat her to it, “No, I’d be happy if you stayed. I just don’t want to bother you if you have somewhere else to go.”

“It’s no bother really,”

They both sat down against the wall and talked mindlessly about school and other things. Sara couldn’t help but really look at Ava, the way she smiled and laughed whenever Sara would punch out a joke. She could feel a familiar feel in her stomach, deep in her gut, that led Sara to believe that she was beginning to like Ava.

In the middle of their conversation, Sara’s phone vibrated in her hands. She tried to ignore it but Ava saw Sara’s subtle look to check who it was, “You could answer it you know,” 

Sara looked at her phone and saw Amaya’s name, “It’s fine.” 

“I don’t mind,” 

“Okay, sorry it’ll only take a sec.” Sara said as she swiped on her phone and took the call.

“Hey, I don’t know if you saw the group messages but I think dinner is cancelled.” Amaya wasted no time in telling Sara what happened.

“Why?”

“Ray is staying back in the school lab again and Zari went home so everyone decided to postpone it,” Amaya explained, “Are you okay with that?”

“I’m good.” Sara replied as she looked at Ava who was on her phone as well.

“Alright, and Coach said you don’t need to come to practice today if you are tired. I got it covered.”

“Thank you Amaya. I owe you one,” Sara said relieved that she got to rest, “Is everything okay with Z?”

“You should ask her that,” Amaya’s tone changed and she quickly ended the call, “Water break’s over for me, good luck on your audition.”

Before Sara could say goodbye, Amaya already ended the call. She made a note to talk to her best friend later, but quickly put her phone in her pocket and faced Ava.

“Sorry, it was just Amaya.” 

“Everything okay?”

“Well, all of us were going to go to dinner but I think something’s up with the group so we cancelled.” 

Ava grimaced in pity, “That doesn’t sound okay.”

“It’s fine, they’ll get it resolved. We always do.” Sara waved it off.

Ava laughed quietly knowing that Sara’s particular group of friends are special. Sara bit her tongue and hid a smile when she made Ava laugh. The familiar feeling building up inside her again, she couldn’t deny that there’s something developing in relation to her feelings for Ava, but she can’t say anything yet. She doesn’t want to ruin something that’s barely started.

“Actually, if you don’t have plans for later…” Ava started.

Sara beamed waiting for Ava to finish her sentence.

“Do you want to accompany me for dinner?” She asked.

Sara nodded nervously trying to hide how excited she was in front of Ava, though she couldn’t stop tapping her knuckles against her thigh lightly, “Sure!’ 

“Oh good, great! I’ll text Gary. You know Gary right?”

“Gary?” Sara backtracked.

“Yeah, I thought you guys were in a class last year together.” Ava said as she pulled out her phone and started to text what Sara presumed is Gary.

Sara blinked a couple of times before realizing that Ava expected an answer, “Right, I remember Gary.” 

“That’s good, I didn’t want to third wheel him and Constantine. I’m always dragged into their dates or ‘hangouts’ as they call them,” Ava air quotes as she rolled her eyes.

Sara mustered a chuckle and listened to Ava rant about her friends. She felt a disappointment in her stomach when Ava mentioned that they weren’t going alone. ‘Then again, she’s probably straight’ Sara thought as she subconsciously knocked on her thighs a bit harder. 

In the middle of Ava’s texting, her name was called out by the teacher. Both of them stood and Ava whispered a final good luck as Sara went in to perform her piece.

The teachers watched her dance aptly, she didn’t overdo it wanting to show that she could do a background character dance moves. After her dance, Sara sung a verse of a song that Ava helped her pick out.

“Thank you Ms. Lance.” One of them said, “May I ask why you’re pursuing in the fine arts department on your senior year?” 

“I need an art credit.” Sara shrugged and told the truth.

The three teachers smirked and shook their heads as they wrote notes on their notepads, “Thank you for your honesty. You’re done for today.”

“Cast list will be up on Monday.” 

Sara nodded and went out the door. She found Ava standing where she left her, the door opening alerting Ava to look up from her phone and look at Sara.

“How was it?” Ava asked as Sara stepped up to her.

“Good, I think? They asked why I auditioned and I said I needed an art credit to graduate.” Sara said.

Ava slapped her arm lightly, “Shut up. You did not.” She scoffed and grinned disbelievingly.

“What? I was just being honest.” Sara laughed as well, taking her backpack up from the ground.

Ava followed her and grabbed her stuff from the ground too. They walked to their cars together and Ava gave her directions to a milkshake place when Sara told her that she was going to go home, drop off her stuff and change first. They split up and Sara drove home.

When Sara got home she changed quickly, and dropped her stuff in her room. She managed to send a quick text to Zari to let her know that she’ll call her later at night and when she got no response Sara decide to deal with it after she went out with Ava and her friends.

The drive to the milkshake place wasn’t that long for Sara, she saw Ava’s car and parked next to her. She went in and didn’t realize how awkward it would be when John would be there. She took a deep breath and remained calm as she approached the table where they were sitting.

“Sara!” Gary greeted.

She waved her hand smoothly and sat next to Ava, “Hi guys.” 

“Hey, glad you could join us. You know John,” Ava introduced.

“Me and Sara go way back,” John winked at her and Sara scowled, “Ain’t that right love?”

Sara ignored him and chose to talk with Ava instead. The waiter, who Sara learned was Ava’s friend, came to get their order and Sara ordered a standard vanilla milkshake and fries.

She found herself enjoying her time with Ava, even if there were other people involved as well. Albeit her history with Constantine, Sara knew that Gary and him were something so she didn’t want to overstep. She ended up talking to Ava most of the night and if at one point Ava offered her a fry dipped in her chocolate shake, she might’ve purposefully opened her mouth so Ava fed it to her. 

Sara knew she was subconsciously moving closer to Ava every time she would laugh or react. At one point, they were close enough that from the way Sara was sitting, with one leg tucked under her, her knee was touching Ava’s thigh. She didn’t know if Ava minded or not because now Ava would accidentally brush her hand against Sara’s knee whenever she was explaining something to John or Gary. The light touch left Sara with a slight blush that she quickly hid by drinking her milkshake.

When the sun set, Constantine was the first one to break off the group. They paid for their food respectively and went to their cars. Sara and Ava paused as they were in front of theirs.

“Well, good night.” Sara smiled as she faced Ava, her hands in stuffed in the back pocket of her jeans.

“Good night Lance, and thank you for today.” Ava said as she clasped her hands on her back.

Sara smiled at Ava’s use of her last name for a nickname, “It’s no problem, I had a lot of fun.”

“I’m glad.” 

After saying goodbye again, Sara went to her car and opened up her phone, there were text messages but she opened the ones from Zari first. Sara skimmed through the messages that basically said that her and Amaya made up. She quickly texted her back that she was going to still call her in an hour, and Zari replied with an okay.

As soon as Sara was home, she noticed that her dad wasn’t back yet so she texted him to let him know she was home. Then she went up to her room and called Zari.

“Hey,” Zari said when she picked up the phone.

“Is everything alright Z?”

“Fine cap. It was just a disagreement Amaya and I had over a project, nothing big. Sorry dinner had to cancel for it.”

Sara didn’t really believe Zari’s words but nodded along anyway to see if Amaya would say the same thing when asked. She chose to ignore it for now, glad that they were civil again.

“You don’t need to be sorry about dinner, I actually went out with someone else so thank you for that,”

“And would this ‘someone else’ happen to be really tall, her name rhymes with Lava,” Zari’s voice taunted her.

“Lava, really?” Sara laughed, “And yes it was Ava. But we were also with Gary and Constantine,”

“Ew, why?”

“Shut up, they’re friends and she invited me to have dinner with them.” Sara explained.

“She _invited_ you or she invited you?” 

“That doesn’t even make sense, you jerk.” 

“Whatever you say cap,” Zari teased, popping the p.

Sara was happy that Zari and Amaya weren’t mad at each other anymore, despite not knowing what truly happened. She trusts them both enough that she wouldn’t be mad if they lied to her. 

As Zari was explaining something about computers to her and some new metal band she found, Sara finally noticed how tired she is. She faded out from Zari’s story as she laid down on the middle of her bed, letting her legs dangle to the floor.

“... and their music is honestly life, are you even listening Sara?” 

The question pulled Sara out of her stupor and she answered Zari quickly, “Of course, I’m just tired is all.” 

“I can tell. Go get some rest, you have a game tomorrow morning.”

Sara groaned loudly completely forgetting that she had a Saturday game, she was caught up with everything else that soccer has slipped her mind, “Thanks for reminding me.”

“Always, it’s almost like I was born to just make your life miserable,” Zari said, “In a good way of course.” 

Sara scoffed and ended the call with a, “Okay you bitch, see you later.”

Zari managed to sneak in a laugh before Sara pressed the end call button.

She was not looking forward to her game but texted Amaya to pick her up on her way to school for the bus tomorrow while packing her soccer bag knowing that there’ll be a slight chance that she would wake up late and was counting on Amaya to wake her up if that happens.

Then she took a quick shower and went to bed. 

-

Monday came swiftly. Sara had one day of rest on Sunday, spending most of her day with her dad on their living room couch watching funny cop shows and listening to her dad make fun of them. 

Ava and her exchanged a bunch of messages and Sara found herself enjoying the light banter that they send each other. 

When she arrived at school on Monday, she was nervous to check the cast list. Ava said that it was usually already up in the morning. That was why she and Ava was just outside the fine arts building, debating on checking it now or later. Ava then encouraged her to go in, opened the door and went inside with her to check the board. There were quite a few people already standing in front of it, and they all stared at Sara when she walked in. She could hear whispers of her name being said by them and was increasingly nervous if she didn’t make it on the list.

When she approached the board, she checked the bottom first for the list of cast that were casted as background roles and frowned deeply when she didn’t find her name. Ava seemed to have the same idea too, just as she was about to say to Ava that she was unphased Ava gasped when she saw who the main character was casted as.

Sara followed Ava’s line of sight and couldn’t believe that her name was written beside Peter Pan.

“They made you the lead in the play,” Ava pointed out.

Sara bit her lip and saw the board, “Yeah. I don’t know how that happened,” 

“Well, this production is officially going to go down in flames.”

Sara couldn’t bring herself to react to Ava’s statement and instead turned around and said, “I think they got the casting wrong. Who were the teachers in charge of this again?”

“Mr. Woodwick and Ms. Chimes,” A girl beside her answered her, “They’re usually in the choir room in the morning,”

Sara muttered a quiet, “Thanks.” And headed to the choir room, she doesn’t know if Ava was following her or not but right now she just wanted to fix the problem.

When she got to the door, she noticed Ms. Chimes wasn’t in but there were already a bunch of students in front of Mr. Woodwick’s desk. She could hear the conversation inside and waited to come in.

“Sara Lance? Really?” Sara could hear a male voice talking, “A girl playing Peter?”

“Mr. Woodwick, I beg that you rethink this decision. She hasn't participated in a play in years.” A female voice this time.

“We’ve already made our decision and it is final.” A gruff voice said that she knew was Mr. Woodwick’s.

She chose at that time to walk in the room, she saw four students that she recognized for being prominent in the drama department. She could hear footsteps behind her and saw Ava come in with her as well.

“Ms. Lance, I presume you came because you saw the cast list?”

“Yea, I think there’s something wrong with it.” Sara said as she tried to ignore the disapproving glares of the four students in the room, “I don’t think I’m suited to play Peter Pan.” 

“See?” One of the students said.

“She herself doesn’t even want to play it.” Another one of them continued.

Mr. Woodwick shushed them and asked Sara, “And why is that?” 

“Firstly, isn’t Peter Pan supposed to be a guy?” 

“No, the play’s origins kept Peter’s gender ambiguous,”

“Well, I really don’t think I can act better than most of the people that auditioned and has been in plays for most of their high school careers. I feel like I’m robbing them of their rightful place.” Sara said.

“Ms. Lance, what you brought to your audition was entrancing and Ms. Chimes and I knew you were the person for the job right away. We needed someone of your stature and skill.” 

Sara was surprised to hear that out of a teacher’s mouth, she was unsurprised however to hear the scoff one of the kids made as he made that statement.

“Hey! She earned that role just like any other person. She doesn’t deserve to be singled out, Tommy.” Ava defended from beside her. 

“She’s only doing it for the credit, why does she get to be the lead?” Tommy asked, his voice indicating his frustration. And Sara would like to know that as well, it was one thing to have some people in the athletic department hate her, now she has drama kids disliking her too.

“That’s enough Tommy. We can continue discussing this at a later time, I will post the schedules on the board later in the week. First full read through should be on Wednesday, now go or you all will be late to class.” Mr. Woodwick said.

The rest of them didn’t put up a fight and filed out of the room. Once they were out of Mr. Woodwick’s eyesight, Tommy came up to her and said, “You don’t deserve the title of the lead, I bet you just begged your coach to put you in and then this happened.” 

“Way to ruin it for the rest of us.” Another person said.

“Shut up, don’t get butthurt over this.” Ava defended her once again, and this time she has a hand on Sara’s upper arm to comfort her.

“Why’re you defending her? You should be on our side Sharpe.” 

“I’m not going to side with you because you’re treating her unfairly.” Ava explained as her grip on Sara’s arm tightened. 

Sara chose to stay quiet, anything she’d say would just make it worse. She didn’t want Ava to get in trouble with the cast because they were going to be working long hours with them but right now she was in shock that she was casted as lead.

“Tch. Whatever, this is on your hands now too if the play goes awry.” Tommy and his friends then left, and subsequently Ava’s hand also dropped from Sara’s arm.

“You alright? Tommy’s a nice kid I swear. He’s just mad that he didn't get lead.” Ava tried to redeem him.

“I’m fine.” Sara offered, “Don’t worry about it.”

“Hey, when most people get lead in the play they’re usually happy about it.” Ava moved to stand in front of her trying her best to lighten her up.

“Well I’m not most people Ava,” Sara exasperated, “This is the worst fucking thing.”

Ava took a step back at Sara’s outburst, readjusted her backpack strap on her shoulders and nodded, “Oh I’m sorry, I- uh I’ll see you in class then.”

Before Sara could say sorry, Ava was already turning around and walking away from her. She couldn’t be bothered to go to first period, instead opting to go to her coach’s office to get it sorted out.

She was grateful that she had such close ties with Rip, in the past when she would make reckless decisions to get involved in fights, Rip offered her his office as a space to cool down and he would write her a pass to her next class. 

She ran from the arts building to her coach’s room and slammed the door open. She threw her bag on one of the arm chairs and her body on the other one. 

Rip waited until Sara calmed down before lightly coaxing her to talk like he always does, “What happened?”

“The effin play happened.” Sara huffed, “Did you see the cast list this morning?”

“Language and no.” Rip said, “Did you not get in?”

“The opposite actually, they made me Peter Pan, like the lead.” Sara explained while hugging her legs up to her chest.

“I don’t see the problem here Sara.”

“This wasn’t the plan.” Sara whispered as she played with her shoelaces, “I was only supposed to maybe do a bit of lines and maybe some dancing. I’m going to have to choose to go to rehearsals or games and it’s going to take everything I have not to choose games.”

“That seems to be a problem.” Rip stood up from his desk and stood in front of Sara, leaning back on his desk.

“People who probably deserve the title of the lead already hates me,” 

“How do you know?”

“I just had a very nice encounter with one of them that threatened that if the play goes bad it’ll all be my fault.” Sara scratched at her hands, itching to make the uncomfortable feeling inside her go away.

“And when has that stopped you?” Rip asked.

“What?” Sara looked up at him.

“Sara you earned your title as volleyball, soccer and softball captain because you work hard, and you care about your team. I’ve never seen anyone stick up for people they care about other than you.”

“That’s different, I actually like doing sports.”

“No it’s not just about sports. Half of your close friends aren’t even in sports like Mr. Palmer or Ms. Tomaz,” Rip explained, “Sometimes you don’t care about the consequences and that’s honestly not a bad thing at times because somehow you make it better.”

Sara stayed silent, looked down at her shoes and stopped picking at her skin. Rip’s speech soothed her worries a bit and she found solace in his words.

“Thanks coach, you’re right. I’ll pull through.”

“Anytime Sara.” Rip put a comforting hand on Sara’s shoulder and continued, “And if you think I’m letting you slack off for soccer just because of this, you’re wrong.”

Sara chuckled and shook her head, “Wouldn’t have it any other way.” 

“You have twenty minutes left of first period, should I write a pass to your second instead?”

“Yes please, I’m going to take a fifteen minute nap.” Sara said, “What am I going to do without you Rip?”

“Hopefully good things,” Rip muttered as he returned to his desk and wrote a pass for Sara.

After her nap, she met with Amaya to go to their second period together. She explained what happened to her in detail as they walked to their next class. Amaya was empathetic and assured her that she’ll do her role as vice-captain when Sara has drama to tend to.

Her role in the school play went around the school quickly, she had her teammates come up to her and ask her about it and people she doesn’t know from the drama department come up to her as well. And when she came in her statistics class, Ava was already facing the board and refused to look back at Sara.

Sara couldn’t focus that whole class and thought about how to apologize to Ava. She took her frustration out on her after she defended her to her peers. She forgot that her and Ava weren’t that close of friends, and she really doesn’t want a repeat of last year seeing that she now was going to be working closely with her again.

Just as Sara was about to approach Ava, by the time the bell rang Ava was already out the door. Sara sighed as she watched her leave and did the same. After two more people went up to her and asked about the play, she had to ask Mick to glare at anyone coming up to her. She was tired of answering the same questions and Mick provided a good scare.

When they sat in their lunch table, Sara didn’t touch her food. Instead, she laid her head on Amaya’s shoulder as soon as she sat down and Amaya instinctively wrapped her arms around her.

“Isn’t senior year supposed to be your last and best year?” Sara asked after everyone sat down.

“Well technically…” Ray started but a quick stare from Amaya shut him up indicating that Sara was really not in the mood for arguing.

“It’s definitely your last year.” Mick said as he took a sip of his energy drink.

Sara took a carrot from her plate and threw it at him, Mick choked on his energy drink and scowled at Sara but made no move to actually do anything about it.

“The play will be over before you know it.” Amaya said.

“Production is literally all the way until February of next year. I’m not going to survive,” Sara complained.

“We’ll help you cap!” Nate smiled from across her, “If you ever need homework to copy, you can count on me.” 

“Thanks Nate, it’s a miracle really how our teacher never catch us literally turning in the same answers,” Sara changed her position so now her back was resting on Amaya’s shoulder and her legs were pulled up and resting against Wally who was sitting on her other side.

“I don’t know how I can help, but I’ll be here too.” Wally smiled.

Sara smiled softly at Wally, he was the newest addition to their team and was the only junior in their friend group. Rip was the one that first introduced him to her in the middle of her junior year and Sara grew fond of him. Aside from playing good basketball, he was also a very fast runner and set a school record in his last school placing second next to the legendary Barry Allen. 

(Which Sara knew was a big achievement)

“Thanks bud.” Sara nudged her foot against his leg and he beamed at her.

“You should at least eat your tater tots,” Amaya said while already grabbing a one and putting it in front of Sara’s mouth, “You need the energy and you love tater tots.” 

Sara sighed but relented letting Amaya feed her, it was a bit awkward with their position but they made it work. 

After a while, a person must’ve approached the table because she heard Mick say, “Fuck off, cap doesn’t want to answer questions.” 

“Well it’s a good thing I’m not here to ask a question then.” The person said stiffly.

Sara recognized Ava’s voice and stood up. She faced Ava and put a hand on her neck, “Hey.”

“Could we talk?”

“Sure.” 

Sara’s sure her whole table is staring at her but let herself be guided by Ava to the deserted part of the lunchroom beside the broken vending machines.

“Listen Ava, I’m sorry about this morning.” Sara began by apologizing.

“It’s fine.”

“No, it’s really not. You stood up for me in front of your friends and I just blew it all to shit. So I’m sorry.” 

“Sara, it’s fine. I forgive you,” Ava said.

Sara looked to Ava’s eyes and scrunched her face, “You do?”

“It really wasn’t a big deal, I was hurt a bit but not a lot. I knew being the lead in the play was probably the last thing you wanted.” 

“Oh.” Sara pursed her lips bit the inside of her cheek, “Well what’d you want to talk about?”

“I think I know a way to get you out of being the lead.” Ava said.

Sara blinked a few times and smiled, “Wait really?” 

“Yea, as soon as I left stats class I went straight to Ms. Chimes and told her your situation. She was willing to reconsider recasting you as a minor character.” 

Sara grinned widely at her, “That’s awesome! Oh my god! Thank you!” Without thinking twice, Sara moved forward and hugged Ava. 

After about a second of it, Sara realized that it was Ava and not one of her close friends. She let go immediately and stepped further away from her.

“Sorry.” 

“Again, it’s fine.” Ava stuttered out. Sara saw a blush creeping on her face and looked away, she probably made Ava uncomfortable, “I’ll take you after school to her office to discuss the matters further.”

Sara nodded and noticed the change in Ava’s voice from casual to formal. She royally fucked up by ignoring boundaries, and beat herself up over it.

“Okay, I’ll see you after school then,” Sara said as she began to walk away. 

Ava replied with a nod and walked away to her table as well.

When Sara got back to her table, she sat in her previous seat next to Amaya. Zari wasted no time to ask what happened and Sara explained that Ava talked to one of the directors and got her a chance at a recast. 

“Ava went to do all that for you?” Nate asked.

“Yea?” 

“Since when did you and pantsuit become all…” Mick motioned his two fingers together, “Buddy-buddy with each other?”

Sara snickered at Mick’s nickname for Ava, “We aren’t-” She mimicked Mick’s motions with her fingers exaggeratedly, “-Buddy-buddy.”

Zari replied with a sarcastic, “Uh huh.” 

“She simply knew my situation and offered to help out.” Sara explained, her voice going higher with each word.

“Is this a good time to mention you like her now?” Amaya teased.

Sara’s jaw dropped as the rest of the table ooh’d, she grabbed Wally’s notebook from the table and hit Amaya with it multiple times but careful to not actually hit her until it hurts.

“Sorry, sorry.” Amaya grabbed on the notebook and pulled it out of Sara’s hands, “Goodness. I didn’t think you’d actually hit me,”

“Did it hurt?” Sara asked.

“No-”

“Then I’m not sorry.” 

The table laughed and Sara stuck her tongue out at Amaya. 

“So you like Ava?” Ray put his elbows on the table and rested his head on his hands, “Tell us more,”

“There’s nothing to tell, ‘maya’s delusional.” Sara pouted as the whole group stared at her.

“Captain’s got a crush,” Zari sung. 

“Wait for real?” Wally asked oblivious to the team’s teasing. 

Sara groaned and took Wally’s notebook again to cover her head on her table. She felt Amaya’s comforting hand running up and down her back. 

“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about Sara, you like Ava so what?” 

“One: I don’t even know if she’s straight or whatever,” Sara said from where she was resting on the table, her voice partly muffled by her position.

“Second: I probably scared her off already because I got angry at her for no reason this morning and then she forgave me then I hugged her just now without any sort of like-” Sara sat back up again and gestured with her hands, “-like notice or something, like what’s wrong with me?” 

Sara finished her rant breathless and disregarded what she just said, “Whatever, it doesn’t matter.” 

“Well, first of all, it does matter. Sounds like you like her as more than friends.” Zari started.

“And that’s nothing to be embarrassed about cap, you hugged her, so what? She did something nice for you and you guys are friends now, you should be allowed to hug her,” Nate continued.

The group nodded along and Sara felt herself ease with the support that the group gave her, “Thanks guys.” 

“No problem, I hope you get it sorted out.” Ray said ending the conversation right as their lunch bell rang.

When the after school bell rang, Sara and Ava went to Ms. Chimes’ room to discuss Sara’s role. Upon arriving, they were also joined by Mr. Woodwick. They conversation was unfruitful as Mr. Woodwick made a firm stance on Sara adamantly sticking with the role of Peter Pan.

Sara tried to argue for herself, saying that she would have no time between soccer and her studies and the play. Then Mr. Woodwick said that she’d either play Peter Pan or she won’t be in the play at all. 

Sara knew she needed the credit to graduate so she relented and agreed to play the role. Ava and her walked out of the classroom together feeling dejected.

“It was worth a try.” Ava said, “I’m sorry Sara.” 

“It’s okay, but thank you for trying though,” Sara smiled lightly.

They walked out of the building together and Sara remembered that she didn’t pay attention at all in statistics so she was deciding if she should ask Ava to help her or not. Sara didn’t want to ask too much of her because she’d already done so much. She decided to not ask when they met up with Gary when walking back to the other building.

As Sara expected, Ava left with Gary to go to some sort of meeting that Sara didn’t catch. Sara parted ways with Ava and texted Amaya to meet up with her. Amaya texted back that she was with Zari and Sara opted to leave them alone.

While walking to her car, she saw Mick and Wally also walking out. Sara ran over to them and jumped on Mick’s back. 

“I’m going to kill you,” Mick growled probably expecting that it was Nate, his eyes softened when he saw Sara.

“Hey, where are you guys going?” Sara jumped off his back and bit her tongue, knowing that she likes to take advantage of Mick’s soft spot for her. 

“We’re going to my neighbourhood to shoot some hoops, wanna come?” Wally answered as they continued walking. 

“Sure.” 

Sara followed Mick and Wally to their neighbourhood and watched as Wally got a basketball out of his car. They played around for a while until Mick got tired of Wally baiting him, so he and Sara settled to sit on the bench to watch Wally instead.

After a minute of silence, Mick asked out of nowhere, “What’s going on with you boss?” 

Sara hummed and murmured a, “Nothin’ what do you mean?” While still watching Wally.

“You and that uptight bitch, you guys close now?” 

“Ava’s not an uptight bitch,” Sara leaned back and crossed her legs.

“That’s what you called her last year,” Mick said as he took out an energy drink from his bag and drank it.

“Well that was last year,” 

Sara held her hand out and motioned him to give the bottle, he finished taking a sip and gave his bottle for Sara to drink.

“You’re going soft for her.”

Sara drank the energy drink and asked, “How can you guys already tell? Like, hell, I don’t even know if _I_ like her,”

“Because unlike that dumb jerk Constantine, you don’t just see her as someone you want to fuck,” Mick explained, “You have the googly eyes.” 

“I do not have the ‘googly eyes’.” Sara scoffed. 

“Don’t deny it bos-”

She paused their conversation by putting a hand up, when she noticed that Wally missed his third shot in a row and saw that he was growing frustrated, “Wally! Take a break, come over here.” 

Wally looked between Sara and the ball a couple of times, he sighed and jogged towards them. Sara scooted over to Mick so that Wally would have a place to sit, Mick grunted but moved too. It didn’t leave Wally with too much space but he had enough so that he could sit comfortably for a minute.

“What’s up buddy? You feeling off?” Sara asked Wally while patting his sweaty back but immediately recoiled when she felt his sweat. She wiped her palms on Mick’s shirt but realized he was also sweating, so she wiped it on Mick’s bag instead.

Mick punched her arm and Sara tried to punch him back but Mick caught her hand. Wally saw their interaction and laughed softly, “You guys are funny, it’s like watching a comedy sketch but in real life,” 

“Shut it kid.” Mick released Sara’s hand from his grip and Sara managed a small punch on his chest.

Instead of feeling offended Wally giggled again, “Sorry,” 

“So what’s the deal Wals?” Sara turned her body back to him and looked at him expectantly.

“Nothing, just some teammates of mine being stupid.” Wally scratched the back of his neck.

“What’d they do?” Sara pressed knowing that Wally needs reassurance that Sara actually cares about his well being, “Who do we need to beat up?”

“No, no need to beat up anyone.” Wally put his hands out.

Sara stared at him and nodded, “Then what’s going on?”

Wally fidgeted with his fingers and said, “Just, well there’s a guy in our team and some people caught me staring at him in the locker room, like _that_ stare, you know?” 

“Oh?” Sara raised her eyebrows and waited for him to say more.

“And they found out and told the guy and now the guy thinks I’m on to him or whatever,” Wally confessed, “And like, it’s not even true. If anything he’s the last guy I would want to be with, but I can’t help it if he has a nice back okay?”

Sara snorted and ruffled Wally’s hair, “Oh kid.” 

“Now I can’t fucking concentrate in the court if all he does is stare at me,” 

“Hey, language,” Sara chided.

Wally subconsciously said, “Sorry,” Without realizing but put it off, “But anyway that’s it. It’s nothing,”

“It’s not nothing, do you want me to talk to those guys?”

“No, I’ll be fine Sara. Thank you though.” Wally smiled and stood up, “But _you_ should ask that girl out.” 

He winked and ran towards his ball before Sara could respond.

“Kid’s right.” Mick added as he gulped down the rest of his energy drink.

Sara rolled her eyes and groaned. 

“Twenty bucks says you’ll get together before the end of the play,” Mick teased.

“Bet.” 

“Betting with you is cheating, we already have a pool going on.” 

“What? With who? What bet?” Sara questioned.

“Tomaz started it. Haircut, and I bet that you’ll get together before the play ends while the other losers said before the first show.” 

“Well let me in on it, and my bet is that we won’t get together before or after anything,” Sara said as she pulled out her phone from her pocket and saw messages from Ava asking her if she was free tomorrow.

Mick looked over at her phone, saw the messages and chuckled, “You were saying?”

Sara hit him hard this time on the chest and Mick just laughed harder. 

-

The first read through with the cast was not a good experience. Sara didn’t feel welcomed, she has never interacted with almost all of the cast members. There’s no denying that Sara felt extremely nervous when she would read her lines, and overwhelmed that she would have to memorize all of it.

By the time it ended, Sara was stuffing her script into her bag and rushing out of the building before everyone else got out. She ran to the field where soccer practice were and joined them when she got there.

Amaya approached her after practice when she must’ve noticed that Sara wasn’t on top of her game today. 

“You alright?” Amaya asked.

“Yes, perfect. Everything’s good.” Sara turned to change out of her practice shirt, wiping the sweat off her neck.

“You know you can’t lie to me, Sara.” Amaya sat on the bench while waiting for Sara to change.

“I’m fine, Amaya, really,” Sara said as she put on a clean shirt and closed her locker, “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“How’d the read through go then?” 

“Fine.” 

Amaya hummed and raised her eyebrow, not believing Sara, “Sure.”

“It _was_ fine,” Sara reassured.

“And how are things with Ava? Did you ask her out yet?”

“No.” Sara picked up her gym bag and headed out the door, noticing that Amaya was following her, “And I’m not going to.” 

“Why not? She clearly likes you.” Amaya opened the door for them as they walked out of the locker room.

Sara rolled her eyes at her and said, “You have no proof.” 

Amaya scoffed, “So the ice cream thing yesterday didn’t prove anything?”

Sara looked at her and shook her head, “Nope. We were just two friends who went out for ice cream… Together,” 

“You’re so in denial.” 

“You’re in denial! What were you doing at the ice cream place anyway?”

“I was with Zari! As friends. What you were doing with Ava seemed to be more than friends,” Amaya accused, “Seriously, she was laughing at everything you say and the hair tucking thing was clearly because she was trying to get you to notice her,”

“No she wasn-”

“And don’t get me started about how she was looking at you when eating that ice cream,” Amaya interjected.

Sara and Amaya both arrived at the parking lot and she was seriously regretting that she chose to ride with Amaya today. She gave Amaya a look and opened the passenger door of Amaya’s car. 

“She doesn’t like me okay?” Sara said when Amaya started up the car, “She said so herself.” 

“What?” Amaya paused reversing her car to look at Sara.

“I overheard her talking to Gary before we went for ice cream.” Sara picked at her nails and continued, “They were in the room I was supposed to meet Ava in and I heard Ava say that I was a handful and that the production months are going to be long with me as the lead,” 

“Oh, Sara.” Amaya said as she put a hand over Sara’s hand to stop her from scratching them, “I’m sorry.” 

“What for?” Sara sighed, “It’s not like I had a chance with her anyway, with our history and all.” 

“Still.” Amaya took her hand off when she was sure Sara would stop hurting herself and started to back out again, “Then why did you go for ice cream?”

“I already promised her and I didn’t want her to know I was listening,” Sara explained.

“Then she is doing an amazing job at leading you on then, because from everyone elses’ view, she clearly looks like she likes you,” 

“Can we just not talk about it anymore? I’m tired.” Sara leaned her head on Amaya’s window and acknowledged the quiet okay from Amaya. 

She closed her eyes when she heard Amaya play a song from her phone to her car. She woke up when Amaya tapped her and saw that instead of her house, they were at Ray’s house. Ray lived the furthest from school and with the traffic, Sara noticed that she had slept for a half hour. 

“Why’d you bring us to Ray’s?”

“Movie night.” Amaya grinned as she turned off her car and got out of it.

Sara blinked and followed her out, “Movie night isn’t until next week Friday,”

“Emergency movie night, filled with popcorn, unhealthy candy and questionable movies,” Amaya put her arms around Sara’s shoulder and they walked in sync to Ray’s front door.

Amaya rang the doorbell and Nate answered it, “Hello Amaya and cap’n, come in.” 

They both walked into Ray’s house but Amaya stopped at the foyer to talk with Nate. Sara continued walking and saw Ray opening up Netflix on his huge TV in his living room. The group decided that Ray’s house was the optimal place to have movie nights because of the TV and the surround speakers that his mom implemented to the room. And his mom lets them crash in the living room so they don’t have to worry about sleeping arrangements.

“Hey Ray-ray,” Sara greeted 

“Hey to you too!” Ray put down the remote and gave Sara a hug.

Sara returned the hug and laid back on the couch, “So who’s turn is it to pick a movie?” She asked as she threw a blanket over herself.

“Yours.” Amaya stepped in front of her and handed her the remote.

“I thought it was Nate’s? Pretty sure two weeks ago he was very hype on making us watch Voltron,” Sara said.

“And I still am! But my turn is next week’s,” Nate explained, “For tonight, you have free reign,”

“You can think about what to watch while we’re still waiting on the others.” Amaya sat on the other side of the couch and tucked herself on the other side of Sara’s blanket, putting her feet on Sara’s.

Sara briefly looked at Amaya to see if she organized the movie night because of what she’d revealed about Ava. Amaya only smiled at her and nodded her head towards the TV to tell her to pick something. She smiled back and tried not to feel overwhelmed to have friends that care about her this much to have gathered them all for a movie night in the middle of a school week.

In the next half hour, the rest of their group came and were sprawled about in Ray’s living room. Sara made slow conversation but mostly stayed silent as she enjoyed listening to her friends talk. She settled for watching Planet Earth and no one commented on her choice. 

When the episode hit the twenty minute mark, Sara whispered, “Thanks for this guys.”

She heard quiet ‘you’re welcomes’ and ‘of course’ throughout the room, and her heart felt full. At one point in the movie, she felt Amaya move from the couch to the floor next to Zari and smiled when Zari immediately used Amaya as a pillow.

They all fell asleep like that by about the third episode. The next morning, everyone was scrambling to get dressed and get their last minute homework done before they were all late to school. 

Sara rode with Amaya and Zari to school and all of them ran to their first period. Sara fell asleep in most of her morning classes, knowing that she wouldn’t have to listen. When fifth period rolled around, Sara ran into Ava walking to their statistics class.

“Hey, you look tired,” Ava said.

Sara let out a slight laugh, “Thanks jerk.”

“No, I didn’t mean… You always look _good_ \- I just- Long night or?” Ava stuttered.

Sara smiled at Ava’s stutter and thought that it was cute, but knew that Ava wouldn’t appreciate her thinking of it that way so she answered, “You could say that.” 

They left the conversation at that and went to their respective desks once they reached the classroom. When she finally thought that the universe would give her a break, their teacher mentioned something about partner work and since Ava was the only person she knew here, she begrudgingly walked over to her desk and asked to be her partner.

Ava nodded and Sara pulled up a chair to get to work on their worksheet. Sara wanted to avoid small talk but was proving to be quite difficult as Ava kept asking her questions, she ultimately didn’t mind but it was hard to focus when Ava was sat really close to her.

“So are you ready for practices to start?” 

“Sort of.” 

“If you ever need to run over lines with someone, you could call me,” 

Sara had already thought about that but Ava’s revelation gave her reason to not to, and without thinking she replied, “Don’t want to bother you because apparently I’m a handful to be around.” 

Ava must’ve realized that Sara’s quoting her words to Gary and dropped her pencil to explain herself. Sara didn’t let her as she saw that they were done with the worksheet, stood up and took the paper with her to hand in to the teacher. She returned to her desk and briefly looked at Ava’s confused face before starting on her homework.

When the lunch bell rang a moment later, Ava came by her desk. 

“Sara, let me explain.” 

“Don’t have to, it’s my fault anyway. I’m sorry I called you last week to ask for your help,” Sara began to walk away but felt a hand on her shoulder, “Ava…” 

“Sara.” Ava turned her around and waited for people to file out until it was just them in the room, “You didn’t hear the rest of my answer to Gary, did you even hear the question he asked?”

Sara shook her head, “Didn’t need to.” 

“Well, he asked what I thought about you being lead, and yes, I did say you were a handful and the play’s going to feel long because you’re lead but then I said I didn’t mind because I like helping you, and spending time with you, Sara.” 

“You did?” 

“You can ask Gary,” 

Sara bit her lip and hugged her binder closer to her chest. She felt dumb for taking Ava’s words out of context now, especially when Ava revealed that she enjoyed spending time with her. 

“I’m sorry,”

“Was this the reason why you’ve been shaky with me lately?” 

“Sort of,” Sara said, but she knew the actual reason was because it hurt that Ava doesn’t feel the same way about her which she still doesn’t know but at least she knew that Ava didn’t mind spending time with her.

“Okay then.” Ava nodded, “We should get to lunch.” 

“Yea,” Sara agreed, “Thanks for clearing it up and sorry I was being kind of a bitch for something you didn’t even do,”

“Next time, just ask,” Ava smiled and put a comforting hand on Sara’s forearm before turning to the direction of her locker.

Sara smirked and just as she was about to go to the lunch room, she bumped into Nate on a corner, “Jesus Christ Nate! What’re you doing?” Sara asked as she rubbed her head where she hit his collarbone.

“What were you doing with Ava?” Nate ignored her question.

“What? Were you spying on me?” 

“You weren’t in the lunch room so Amaya texted me to go see if you got in trouble or something,”

“I didn’t.”

“I can see that, but that still doesn’t answer what were you doing with Ava?”

Sara sighed and walked past him to tread to the lunch room, “She explained what really happened on Tuesday,”

“What did happen on Tuesday? Amaya just texted everyone ‘emergency movie night at ray’s, cap is sad about ava situation’ she didn’t really explain much,”

“Well I didn’t say much,” 

Nate slapped her arm while they were walking, “You can tell me,”

“I overheard Ava talking with Gary about how basically she thinks I’m annoying-”

“What a bitch, knew I didn’t like her,”

“- well I took it out of context and she actually said that she enjoyed spending time with me-”

“Never mind, not a bitch.”

“-and does this mean that I have a chance with her? Because I still don’t know if she’s straight or not and-”

“Oh cap I forgot to tell you, she’s definitely not straight,” Nate laughed.

Sara furrowed her eyebrows, “What do you mean?”

“I asked Gary if Ava was straight and he said no, she broke up with her girlfriend last year apparently,” Nate said and when he finished, Sara slapped him with her binder, “Ow!” 

“And you forgot to tell me?”

“You’re always busy, we don’t actually see each other or spend time one on one!” 

Sara looked at Nate and his hands were up to protect him if Sara decided to hit him again, “You’re right, I’m sorry.” 

“I am?”

“Thanks for telling me, Nate.”

“There’s one more thing though,” Nate said, “Gary told me that Ava had a crush on her lab partner a few months ago,”

“Few months like when?”

“Like last month maybe,” Nate put his hands up again and said, “Don’t hit me, I just know this from Gary.”

“I’m not gonna hit you.” Sara hugged her binder as a sign that she was telling the truth.

“Thank God, but I know her lab partner and she’s straight and very much taken! So really, who does she have a better chance with?”

“Doesn’t mean she likes me,” Sara pursed her lips as they finally went into the lunch room and sat at their table.

She repeated what happened to the rest of the group and most of them were just happy that Sara was okay again. The rest of the day was easy for Sara as she breezed through the last two period to then pushing herself in soccer practice, and returning home to sleep the worries of the past few days off.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this was so late! i couldn't figure out how some of the parts would fit and ended up doing a huge time jump, sorry! but anyways enjoy :)

A month had passed since the first read through and Sara was getting the hang of memorizing lines when she has repeated it to herself at least twenty times throughout the day. Even her friends are memorizing her lines with her and they now start to groan whenever Sara would pull out the script from her bag.

Ava has been a huge help to her as well, it was mostly her that taught Sara the tricks to memorize long lines. They would go twice a week after practices to the milkshake place where Ava and her first went with John and Gary, and they would stay long hours until Sara memorized a scene.

And Sara was thankful that Ava was there for her. Every minute she got to spend with her felt special because she was learning so much about her. She learnt that Ava only ever orders chocolate milkshakes because it was her late grandpa’s favorite drink, she learnt that Ava has a pet cat named Beebo courtesy of Gary, she learnt that Ava’s favorite subject is history and government.

In hindsight Sara should’ve known that her feelings for Ava would get in the way of her common sense but Ava had asked a week ago to accompany her to Gary’s birthday party. Sara blindly agreed because she was more focused on Ava’s hands on hers as they were practicing a fight scene.

That’s how Sara wound up mildly drunk in Gary’s house on a Friday night instead of being with the legends. Ava had been with her for the first fifteen minutes but duty called being the best friend of the birthday guy and Sara said it was fine but was wholly regretting it because now she has been alone in the living room for forty five minutes downing empty what might be now her sixth cup of beer.

And it’s rare that Sara would say she doesn’t want to be at a party because, really, she likes a drink from time to time. But not like this. Not at a birthday party with people from school that she barely knows, not with her ‘ex’ currently shirtless on a table singing drunkenly, and especially not with Ava not around.

She glanced around the room and saw Ella from her soccer team pinned up against a wall with her mouth all over a guy that’s definitely not her boyfriend. Sara immediately turned around and walked away to the kitchen, making a note to herself to talk to Ella later. The kitchen is much quieter than the living room, and much less crowded. She randomly grabbed a can of beer from the cooler and drank it.

Upon tasting it she grimaced and looked at the bottle, “Fuckin’ Constantine.” She rolled her eyes as she remembered John’s affinity for weird drinks. 

Sara threw away the weird tasting beer and grabbed one that she knew she liked. She was leaning against the island when she noticed a guy leaving his group of friends to stay back in the kitchen, his eyes were on her body and Sara knows he’s one of the juniors in the boy’s soccer team. Normally, Sara would have no problems with this kind of attention but all she could think about was Ava. Her eyes found a door that led to the backyard and she snuck out. 

The cold wind of the night sent chills running up her spine, Sara put her beer down on a side table and crossed her arms in front of her chest.

She barely walked a few steps to the pool before hearing the door open behind her, just as she was about to give a sorry excuse to the guy, she heard a voice that she recognized. 

“Hey, I was wondering where you went,”

Sara smiled at the sound and turned around to face Ava, “Sorry, I just needed some air.” 

“No need to apologize, are you okay? You didn’t drink too much?” Ava asked softly, stepping in front of Sara.

Sara shook her head while she admired Ava in the soft moonlight glow. She was wearing her hair down, and she knew that she curled it a bit more because Ava had sent her a picture of her burnt thumb due to the curling iron, Sara had laughed but asked if she was okay to which Ava responded with a frowning face. She was also wearing tight jeans and a white shirt, the leather jacket that she had on earlier was tied around her waist. 

“What do you think of the party?” Ava followed up.

“It’s definitely _something_ , I didn’t know Gary could go hard like this.” Sara started walking towards the pool. 

“Well it was mostly Constantine’s idea, if Gary had his way it was D&D night filled with popcorn and movies.” Ava followed her.

“And how do you know that?”

“Because that’s what we did last year and the year before that and the year before that and-” 

Sara giggled and pushed Ava softly. She stopped in front of the pool and looked at the slow undulating water, “Parties like these reminds me of my sister.” 

“How so?” 

Her eyes fixate on the water before continuing, “Once she looked old enough, Oliver gave them fake IDs to sneak in college parties, and when I reached high school they used to sneak me in too,”

Sara took off her shoes, rolled up her jeans and sat on the edge of the pool with her feet in the water, Ava joined sitting cross legged beside her. 

“There was one time that my dad busted a party that we were in, Laurel and I couldn’t go anywhere for a month and I was so mad at her that I swore that I won’t go to another party with her again,” Sara smiled as she continued telling Ava about her sister, “But right now, I’d give anything to have her next to me, joking about the cheap beer and shitty music.” 

“I’m sorry, Sara.” Ava moved closer to her until their thighs were touching and Ava hugged Sara with one arm.

“Don’t be, I’m the one being sad and mopey in your best friend’s party.” Sara laughed but leaned into Ava’s hug anyway.

Ava rubbed her hands up and down Sara’s arm comfortingly as Sara rested her head on Ava’s shoulder. She was content in having Ava around with her to talk about her sister with, she only ever talked about it to a few of the legends and Rip but having someone new listen to her put a fresh perspective of herself.

“Do you want to get back in?” Ava asked after a while, “I promised Gary I’d help him cut the cake.”

“You can go first, I’d just like to stay out here for a bit,” Sara said as she moved away from Ava’s shoulder, “I’m getting dizzy from the beer,”

“Okay, if you’re going home, find me first, alright?” Ava said to Sara

She nodded and replied, “Alright.”

“And here,” Ava removed her jacket from her waist and put it on Sara’s lap, “Don’t catch a cold, it won’t be good for practice.”

“What about you?”

“There’s over a hundred people in that house, it’s basically a human heater. I think I’ll be fine,” Ava giggled.

Sara smiled and patted the jacket in her lap, “Thank you,”

“I’ll see you later,” And with that Sara was left alone.

She looked at the brown leather jacket and put it on. It was a tight fit on Ava but it hung a bit loose when Sara wore it. The scent of the jacket smelled like Ava’s peach perfume, Sara hugged the jacket tighter around her and closed her eyes. She had gotten closer to Ava in the past month and came to acknowledge her feelings for her. She didn’t want to say anything in fear that Ava won’t feel the same way and just relished in the friendship that they had formed.

Practices with the stage crew will start next week and Sara knew she was going to spend long hours with Ava. She’s afraid that something will go wrong and have Ava rethink her friendship with her. A person like Ava shouldn’t even associate with someone like Sara.

Sara sighed and kicked her feet in the water, she heard the faint voices of people singing the happy birthday song to Gary and thought it was probably best to at least participate in the cake cutting.

Careful as to not get herself wet, she stood up slowly letting her feet dry before putting her shoes back on. Then she snuck back inside the living room as the last parts of the song was sung.

She clapped for Gary and saw Ava cutting the cake for an equally drunk Gary and John. Sara laughed as John put icing on Gary’s face but immediately stopped watching when he moved to lick it off. She didn’t need that image implanted to her memory.

Once people have dispersed to other parts of the house again, Sara chose to stand in the hallway of the living room in Ava’s direct eyesight so that she could find her after she was done with Gary.

Ava walked to her after a while and Sara put away her phone in her pocket when she came. 

“You didn’t save me any cake?” She teased.

The look on Ava’s face as she heard what Sara said made Sara laugh, “Oh sorry! Oh my god I’m-“

“Ava, Ava, relax.” Sara bumped her shoulder to Ava, “It was a joke,” 

“Jerk, you had me worried.” Ava bumped shoulders back, “And here I thought I was the bad friend,”

“You could never be a bad friend,”

“Thanks? I guess,” Ava joked.

Sara looked at the time and judged that it was probably best to head home to avoid her dad’s questions.

“Hey, it’s getting pretty late.” Sara pointed at the clock at the hallway, “I should go,”

“No- yea, don’t let me keep you,” Ava fixed her hair and started walking with Sara to the front door, “Wait, shoot, do you have a ride home? I know you didn’t come with your car,”

“My house is like one neighbourhood over, I can walk.” 

“Let me take you home,” Ava suggested as she opened the front door of the house.

Sara shook her head, “It’s fine Ava, I don’t want to take you away from your best friend’s birthday,”

"He’s probably too drunk to know I left, and besides he has John,” 

“You trust him with a drunk Constantine?” Sara smirked.

Ava’s face grimaced and Sara could see that she was second guessing herself but Ava waved it off before she had the chance to say anything, “It’s fine, it’s the least I could do after inviting you here and leaving you for most of the night,”

“I can walk Ava, it’s really no problem, I’m good,” Sara insisted.

Ava held open the door, car keys already in hand, “Sara, I’m not going to let you walk alone at - what time is it - like one am,”

“It’s not going to be the first time, and I can defend myself-”

“Sara, will you please-”

“Ava, come on-” 

“I’m serious-“

A voice interjected their run-on conversation, “Holy shit Lance, let the pretty girl take you home already, fucking hell, hearing you two argue is making my headache worse,” 

Sara looked towards the stairs and surprisingly found yet another player on her soccer team, she’s really beginning to wonder just how many people in it that Gary knew, sitting there and currently nursing her head with a bag filled with ice.

“Damn, Hayley, what happened to you? And what’re you doing in Gary’s birthday party?”

Hayley narrowed her eyes, took an ice cube from the bag and threw it in Sara’s direction, “Stop avoiding your own problems for mine, Cap, go home with the girl,”

Sara glanced at Ava who is still waiting patiently with the door open. She looked at Hayley again and said, “You’re telling me what happened on Monday, and you never saw _this_ ,” 

“I ain’t no snitch, Lance.” Hayley winked, “See you at soccer practice,”

Sara clicked her tongue then turned around and finally stepped through the front door that Ava was holding open. Ava followed behind her and Sara let her pass so that she could follow her to where her car is parked.

“So, who was that?” Ava asked as they’re walking.

“Hayley, she’s from the soccer team, she also apparently thinks you’re pretty,” Sara smiled coyly.

“I heard that, maybe I should get her number.” Ava replied.

Sara’s steps faltered a bit at Ava’s bold comment, and she pursed her lips, “I wouldn’t do that, she already has a girlfriend,”

“Oh, it was worth a shot,” Ava shrugged.

Sara caught up with Ava and eyed her, “I didn’t know you were into girls,” She lied.

“It wasn’t obvious?” Ava asked as they finally reached her car.

“I mean I could’ve guessed but not really,” Sara said as she went into the passenger seat, “It’s not like you’re flaunting it or anything,”

“It’s not like I’m hiding it either,” Ava countered, “Look.” 

Ava pointed to one of the keychains on her car keys and it was a rainbow flag. 

Sara laughed and nodded, “Huh, guess so,”

A comfortable silence fell in the car as Sara took the time to process the information. It’s not like she didn’t believe Nate when he told her that Ava was gay but hearing Ava say it herself sort of solidified it, and maybe - _just maybe_ \- she could have a chance with her.

When Ava pulled up to her driveway, Sara was grateful that there was no sign of her dad’s car or any indication that he was home. She sighed and unbuckled her seatbelt, “Thanks for the ride.”

“It’s no problem, Sara, really.” Ava put a hand on her forearm and Sara stared at Ava’s eyes. 

She didn’t know if it was the alcohol in her system or the proximity of how close she is to Ava but she could hear her heartbeat spike up and she could feel Ava’s fingers lightly touching her arm. Ava was close enough that if Sara moved her body towards the car’s console, she would be just mere inches from her face. And Sara could kiss her, but a part of her mind knows she doesn’t want to, doesn’t want to do it while she’s partially drunk and very tired. She blinked away and softly removed her arms from Ava’s grasp.

“Uhm, drive safe, Ava,” Sara cleared her throat and smiled.

Ava moved her hand away and fixed her fringe, “Yea, uh, have a good night, Sara,” 

Sara nodded and was thankful that the darkness covered the probably very apparent blush on her face and neck, she opened the car door and walked briskly to her house. She waved to Ava when she got her door open and watched Ava drive off. 

It was only when Sara opened her room that she noticed that she was still wearing Ava’s jacket. She mentally cursed herself and went back downstairs to add Ava’s jacket to her laundry pile that she had to do tomorrow. Once she took off the light makeup that she wore and changed into her pyjamas, Sara laid on her bed and checked her phone.

She opened the Legends group chat and responded to a very unfunny meme that Nate sent. When she was typing a reply, a new message from Ava showed on her phone.

[Ava]: Already miss you at the party, it’s no fun knowing your presence isn’t around.  
[Ava]: :( :(

Sara bit her lip and turned on her side to face the wall, she once again got butterflies from even just a simple text from Ava.

[Sara]: if id stayed any longer u woouldve had to drag me out of htere  
[Ava]: I can’t tell if that’s your actual texting or one mixed with alcohol.  
[Sara]: fuck you.  
[Ava]: That’s better.  
[Ava]: Well, thanks again for coming. Get some rest. Drink water first.

Sara replied with an ok finger emoji and heeded Ava’s advice by walking to her kitchen and grabbing a glass of water for her incase she needed it in the night. She fell asleep moments later with the knowing tug of her feelings settling in her body.

Morning came around and Sara was only sporting a light headache. The same can’t be said about her body though, she felt as if a whole lot of punches hit her body in the night. She knew it was because of the combined strenuous activities of her soccer practice, drama practice, the constant movement of her body and the alcohol she consumed last night. When she finally had a time to relax, her body begged her not to move. 

Sara laid on her bed for an extra twenty minutes before she attempted to wake up. When the need to pee became too overbearing, she willed herself up and massaged her head while trudging to the bathroom.

While she was in the middle of brushing her teeth she heard her name being called. 

“Sara?” The muffled voice called again. Sara knew it wasn’t her dad because it was a girl’s voice.

“In the bathroom!” Sara called out but immediately regretted as her voice pounded in her head.

She went out of the bathroom and was greeted with Amaya and Zari sitting on her bed.

“You look like shit,” Zari commented.

“Hush,” Amaya chided, lightly hitting Zari’s hand.

“Who let you two in?” Sara asked noting her voice was hoarse, she moved to drink the water she had gotten last night.

“Your dad,” Amaya answered.

Sara nodded while drinking her water, “I didn’t even know he was home,”

“I think we woke him up because we were ringing the doorbell for a solid ten minutes before he woke up and greeted us with bleary eyes,”

Sara hummed and sat in between them with her back to the wall, she closed her eyes and asked, “Not that I don’t love you both but what’re you doing here so early?”

“Well first of all, it’s noon. And we thought you could use some company,” Amaya said as she changed positions on her bed to coax Sara to put her head on her lap.

“That’s sweet, but honestly, right now I just want to go back to sleep,” Sara mumbled.

“I’m going to play your PS4 while you sleep,” Zari said, followed by the familiar sound of the playstation being turned on.

“You better not touch my Assassin’s Creed or I will personally murder you,” 

“Noted.”

Sara nodded and let herself doze off as Zari opened Fortnite. The almost silent conversation that her friends were having lulling her to a state where she’s half-asleep but half-not. Amaya was softly massaging her head and she was really grateful that she had both of them.

She woke up again when Amaya tried to move her head from her lap to a pillow. Instead of letting her, she sat up and rubbed her eyes.

“Good morning, again?” Zari teased as she looked over to Sara.

“Sorry for waking you, my leg was asleep and was starting to get achy,” Amaya said as she rubbed the leg that Sara was sleeping on.

“It’s alright, what time is it?” Sara asked in between a yawn.

“Half past twelve, you didn’t sleep long,” Zari answered.

“Your dad went out though,” Amaya supplied.

Sara nodded in affirmation and stretched her body, “Do you guys want to eat?”

They waited for Zari to finish her game before going downstairs to her kitchen. Sara took out a granola bar and started to eat it while watching her friends scour for food.

“Damn bitch, you live like this?” Zari asked as she looked inside Sara’s fridge.

“Dad doesn’t have time to go grocery shopping anymore ever since Laurel, those are stuff I get every week in the convenience store so we at least have stuff for breakfast,” Sara explained looking solemnly at her granola bar.

“On that note, Thanksgiving break is next week,” Amaya changed the topic while pouring Sara a glass of orange juice.

“I know, I’m busy all through that week,” Sara said.

“Too busy for us to go to the zoo together?” Amaya asked with a slight inflection to her voice, “They’re opening a new elephants exhibit,”

“Wait, together? Meaning me too?” Zari questioned as she closed the refrigerator door.

“If I get roped into this, you’re coming too Zar,” Sara said while munching on her granola bar.

Amaya rolled her eyes while pouring her cereal into the bowl, “Come on guys! It’ll be fun,” 

Sara and Zari looked at each other with raised eyebrows, then they both looked back to Amaya who somehow had a pleading puppy look on her face. 

“Please?” Amaya pouted.

Sara and Zari both sighed but agreed anyway. Amaya grinned widely and starked over to Sara first giving her a tight hug, and then went over to press a kiss to Zari’s cheeks causing Zari to blush deeply.

She didn’t miss the way that Amaya lingered a bit on Zari’s side, putting her arms around her shoulder and staying close. Her eyes made contact with Amaya’s and she silently tried to ask if there was anything happening between the two, but Amaya blinked hard with purpose and Sara knew it was a conversation for next time. 

“How’s Sunday sound then?” Amaya planned, “Since I know you have a busy week Sara,” 

“Sunday’s fine for me,” Sara nodded as she took the last bite of her granola bar.

“Me too,” 

“Good! Sara’ll pick us both up and drive over,”

Sara scrunched her face and chewed her granola bar quickly to reply, “Wait I didn’t agree on driving, that’s like three hours from here,” 

“Well we both know that between the two of us, I’m better at reading a map, and Zari doesn’t have a car so,” Amaya shrugged, “It’s only logical,” 

“Is it too late to back out?” Sara groaned,

“Yep!” 

Sara rolled her eyes but smiled anyway, she would never admit it but she was glad for Amaya’s meddling in her life sometimes. It’s probably how their group managed to stay together for so long. 

They ate the rest of their breakfast and Sara spent most of her day with them planning for their zoo trip next Sunday and doing laundry. She also bribed them with pizza to practice lines with her for at least two hours. Remembering lines is slowly becoming easier for her because of all the tips and tricks that Ava taught her. She can’t wait to finally practice with motion and props rather than reading it just with inflection and imagining the scenes.

On Sunday, other than jogging around the neighbourhood with Wally in the morning (occasionally racing him but inevitably losing every time), she spent most of her day on her couch catching up on her homework and binge watching shows until her dad came home and joined her.

“Are you doing okay with the play, Sara?” Her dad asked her when the show they were watching went into commercial break.

“Yeah, everything’s fine, dad. How’s your work?”

“It’s fine.”

Sara nodded and asked, “Do you want to stay home for Thanksgiving next week?”

“Sure, honey.” 

“Okay.”

“How’s school, anything new?”

Sara almost said Ava’s name, she almost wanted to tell her dad about the girl in her life that has her reeling and feeling like she has butterflies in her stomach every time she sees her. But she refrains when she saw the tiredness behind her dad’s eyes, opting to tell him everything at a later time.

“Same old, same old. Went on a run this morning with Wally,”

“Really? You finally beat racing him yet?”

Sara giggled softly, “Nope.”

“Well, maybe someday.”

“Yeah, maybe someday.” 

Their show came back on and Sara didn’t dwell on their conversation after that. She went to sleep not long afterwards.

It was on Monday in their AP Statistics class that Ava asked her, “So what’re your Thanksgiving break plans?”

Sara looked across their shared desk and raised her eyebrow, “Well, Amaya and Zari are taking me to the Zoo on Sunday, they have like new African Elephants that Amaya absolutely _has_ to see,”

Ava smirked but added, “Are Zari and Amaya together? If it’s not your place to say, forget I ever asked,”

“They aren’t, but the whole team is rooting for them to get together,” Sara answered as she wrote stuff down on her paper.

“Ah I see, sorry for interrupting, continue,”

“Okay, so Ray is taking me to his robotics competition here at school on Monday, Nate is dragging me to the museum for a special guest speaker on Tuesday then I’m going to drive Wally to SCU for a college basketball game on Wednesday then on Thanksgiving I’ll probably just have a quiet night in with my dad and on Friday I promised Mick I’d accompany him to see a fireworks show.” Sara finished and took a breath.

“Sounds like a full week.” Ava laughed.

“What’re your plans?”

“I don’t have much honestly, I just have dinner with my family on Thursday, then Friday we’re driving up to see my grandparents but that’s about it.” 

Sara contemplated for a moment and bit her pencil, “If you don’t have plans, do you want to go with us on Sunday to the Zoo?”

“No, I wouldn’t want to intrude.” Ava looked away from Sara back to her paper.

“It’s no intrusion, I’m the one asking,” 

Ava pursed her lips and said, “If you ask your friends first how they feel about me coming, then yes, I’ll go with you,”

Sara smiled, “Deal.” 

As soon as class was over, Sara went to her usual lunch table after getting her food. The rest of the group came one by one and they started to eat.

“‘Maya and Zar, is it chill for Ava to come on Sunday to our Zoo trip?” Sara asked with her mouth full of tater tots.

“Ooh what’s going on with Ava?” Nate teased, but Sara ignored him by giving him the middle finger to which he responded, “Rude.”

“Sara, can you not speak with your mouth open, it’s disgusting,” Amaya chided.

“Ava can come,” Zari replied with her mouth full of donuts.

“Both of you are insufferable,”

Sara saw Amaya roll her eyes and took a sip of water to down her food in one go. She giggled and slapped Amaya’s back, “Sorry ‘Maya, is that better?”

“Much,” Amaya said as she removed Sara’s hand from her back, “Now what’s this about Ava?”

“She doesn’t have plans for Thanksgiving break and I invited her to come on Sunday, is that okay?”

“No, yea, I got that part,” Amaya smirked, “But is it like a date or?”

Sara shook her head, “No, it’s not, and it never will be so stop it,”

Her answer elicited groans from the group and Zari threw a carrot to Sara which Sara easily caught. She then threw the carrot back to Zari twice as hard and hit her eye.

“Ow! What was that for? I take it back, you _and_ Ava both can’t come to the Zoo trip,” Zari exclaimed as she rubbed her eye.

“Sara, apologize,” Amaya sighed.

“What? She threw it first, how is it my fault?” Sara fought back.

“You’re the one getting defensive over your feelings for Ava,” Zari called out from the opposite side of the table.

“Fuck you, Tomaz.” Sara stood.

“Bring it.” Zari followed by standing too.

“Now, both of you, sit down.” Amaya mediated standing between them and pulling both of their shoulders back down to sit on the bench.

Sara saw that they had gathered quite a few people watching them and puffed out a breath, she didn’t need anyone knowing about her crush for Ava if they kept fighting over it. She saw Amaya make eye contact with Zari and having a silent conversation without her, Sara knows that she needed to calm down and stood up again with her bag.

“I’m going to Rip’s, but I’m sorry Zari for hitting you in the eye with a carrot.”

“I’m sorry for throwing it in the first place.” 

Sara nodded and threw away her lunch on the way to her coach’s office. She spent the rest of her lunch in there while Rip talked to her about soccer related stuff.

Just before lunch ended, her phone rang with a text.

[Ava]: Saw you leave your table just now, is everything okay?

Sara softened her eyes at the text, she didn’t know Ava sat close enough to her lunch table to be able to watch the ordeal. 

[Sara]: yea its fine, we might not be able to go to the zoo on sunday tho :(

Barely a minute has passed before Sara’s phone vibrated with another text.

[Ava]: That’s what it was about? Shit, Sara, I’m sorry.  
[Sara]: yo no worries it wasnt ur fault ava  
[Sara]: and since im no longer seeing elephants on sunday, u still up for hanging out with me?  
[Ava]: I don’t know.. 

Sara grew nervous about her approach, suddenly she felt concerned if she had overstepped somehow until she read Ava’s next message.

[Ava]: I was really looking forward to the elephants :P

She laughed at Ava’s text followed by a bunch of elephant emojis. 

[Sara]: sorry but i promise ill make it worth ur time  
[Sara]: more than the elephants will  
[Ava]: Haha, okay Lance. I’ll take you up on that.  
[Ava]: And get to class, the bell rang.

Sara sent the thumbs up emoji before standing up and walking out of Rip’s office, thanking him on her way out. 

When Sara saw Zari next, she gave a more sincere apology followed with a hug as Amaya glared at both of them. They offered the zoo trip again but Sara declined with a smile, she relayed that she’ll be going with Ava somewhere instead and the both of them supported her decision by rescheduling their zoo trip for the next Sunday so that they could still go together.

The first day of practice with the stage crew went about as horribly as Sara expected, only for her that is, she wasn’t sure about the others. She also caught Ava grimacing when Mr. Woodwick sighed at her for what seemed to be the hundredth time. Sara was good at following orders in the field, she knew each place and position but she was new to performance and to stage managing. 

They finally cut practice after about two hours of just placing her where she needed to walk or have a monologue in. 

Sara alternated between soccer practice and drama practice, sometimes going to both right after the other for the rest of the week. Her mind was slowly mixed with all kinds of plays for soccer and lines for the production. By the time drama practice ended on Friday night, Sara was beyond tired.

She was in the middle of packing her stuff up when she felt someone walk up behind her. When she turned, she was delighted to see Ava with her bag on her shoulder.

“Hey Ava,” 

“Hey, so what’d you think?”

“Of what?” Sara turned and continued to stuff her belongings in her bag.

“First week of practice on the stage?”

Sara huffed and faced Ava again, “Tiring, and I feel like such a dumbass for not knowing where everything is, like, how am I supposed to know where stage-right is? Is it my right or your right?”

That caused Ava to laugh, “You’ll get the hang of it, Sara, you’re already doing better by the end of the week. You’ll get it down in no time,”

Sara smiled at Ava’s encouragement and replied, “Thanks, Ava, that means a lot.” 

They walked together to the student parking discussing about Sara’s plan on Sunday.

“So, where are we going?”

“You know, the point of a surprise is not knowing what it will be,”

“I don’t like surprises.” Ava sighed.

“Well too bad.” Sara glanced at Ava for a second and laughed at her pout, “I’ll pick you up at your house at ten on Sunday, wear something comfortable.” 

“Fine, I’ll trust you, Lance.” Ava stopped at her car looked pointedly at Sara.

Sara only smirked in response. 

When Sunday came, Sara got ready early and prepares what she needed to hangout with Ava. She looked at her closet and decided on a red top and brown capris, the moment she went to close to closet she spied Ava’s jacket. Sara bit her lip deciding if she should wear it, she shrugged and put it on.

Shortly after she put on the jacket she left the house and pulled up in Ava’s driveway a little bit before ten. She texted Ava that she arrived and Ava came out of her house. She waited until the blonde got into her passenger seat before greeting her.

“Hello,”

“Hey,” Ava paused, “Isn’t that my jacket?” She asked as she buckled up her seat-belt.

“As a matter of fact, it is.” Sara smirked as she backed out of Ava’s driveway and onto the road, “Do you want it back? I promise I washed it,”

“Actually just keep it, that thing was small on me anyways,” 

Sara smiled hoping that Ava would say that, she subconsciously hugged the jacket tighter and continued to drive. 

“So mind telling me where we’re going now?”

“Nope, though you might guess it while I drive there,” 

The rest of the car ride to the place Sara picked out was spent in silence as they both appreciated Sara’s spotify playlist that she was playing in her car. 

It was about the ten minute mark when Ava catched on to where they were going, “A park? Really?”

“Yeap!” Sara exclaimed popping the ‘p’.

“Why though?”

“It’s like the perfect day to have a picnic, the temperature isn’t too hot and it’s not too windy,” 

“You brought me to a park instead of the zoo?”

Sara nodded and looked at Ava as she turned into the park’s parking lot. They spent the Sunday morning and early afternoon together on a picnic blanket that Sara brought, under the trees seamingly hidden from the world. She was worried that Ava would find it boring that they were hanging out in the park together, but Ava seemed to be enjoying it. 

The light snacks that Sara brought were gone by the first hour they were there. Though the same couldn’t be said for the grapes as they spent those trying to throw them to each other’s mouths and ended up just throwing them at each other.

“I like it,” Sara blurted out of nowhere and flushed when Ava looked at her oddly, “I meant your clothes, which uh isn’t any better, I just meant it’s different than your usual style-” Ava widened her eyes and Sara clenched her teeth “-not that there’s anything wrong with your usual style!”

Ava laughed and placed her hand on Sara’s knee, “Thanks, I guess?”

“I just meant it’s more casual, you look more relaxed,”

“It’s literally just a shirt and shorts, Sara.” Ava fingered the hem of her blue shirt.

“You never wear these to school though, it’s always just jeans or pants with like a nice shirt.” Sara pointed out, “You look more comfortable in these,”

“Yea, well, school is school. I feel like everyone has this mindset of me that really I blame myself for because I put it there that I have to be prim and proper all the time,”

“Like keeping a facade sort of thing?”

“I didn’t know you knew what facade means,”

“Hey!” Sara giggled.

Ava laughed and replied, “But, exactly like that, if I come to school dressed like you would or dressed comfortably, people would start talking,” 

“So? Fuck them. You should be able to dress however way you want, Aves.”

“Aves?”

Sara scrunched her eyebrows and asked, “That’s what you got from that?”

“I mean, you’ve never called me anything other than Ava,”

“I did call you a bitch once,”

“And a prick,”

“Maybe I called you a bitch twice,” Sara stroked her chin and Ava laughed and elbowed her thighs.

“Ow ow, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Sara laughed and pushed Ava off her.

“But Aves?”

“I’ll stop if you don’t like the nickname,”

“No, I like it,”

“Good. Aves,” Sara grinned as Ava smiled back softly.

“Anyway what about this park? Is there a reason we spent twenty minutes driving here instead of our usual neighbourhood park?” Ava straightened up. 

Sara smiled at Ava’s detailed curiosity, “Yes there is actually,”

“Tell me.”

“Well, for one it’s much bigger and less crowded,” Sara said as she gestured to the park’s open space, “And this is where my family used to take me before you know everything happened,”

“It’s a beautiful park,”

“Yea, Laurel and I used to run around there all the time when we were kids,” Sara pointed on a large field, “She used to let me practice soccer with her, she sucked at kicking but she knew how to run,”

“That sounds nice,” Ava smiled.

“I miss her a lot,” Sara muttered. “You know, I had the chance to go with her on the trip but she told me no.” 

Sara took a deep breath and exhaled, “She told me to go have fun at sports camp with my friends and that the road trip was for her friends and her only,”

Ava rubbed small circles on Sara’s hand.

“She told me that by the time I was back from camp, she’d be waiting for me with my summer homework. But when I came back, I had a funeral waiting for me. I should’ve suspected something when she didn’t write me a letter but I figured she’d just forgot,”

Sara adjusted her position so that she was leaning back against the tree.

“My dad didn’t tell me anything, it was Ollie who told me that she died when he picked me up from camp.” Sara felt her eyes burn from unshed tears, “My dad let me think that Laurel was still alive when I was at camp because he didn’t know how to tell me, I had to find out from her friend how she died,”

“Sara,” Ava said softly, she took her other hand and hugged Sara letting her head fall into her neck, “I’m sorry.” 

“No, there’s nothing to be sorry for,” Sara sniffed and rubbed her eyes after she finished hugging Ava, “I should’ve begged harder to go on that trip,”

“It’s not your fault.”

Sara only nodded not believing Ava’s words but took comfort in them.

“Do you want to get frozen yoghurt?” Sara asked after she calmed down, “My treat for breaking down in front of you like that,”

Ava breathed out a laugh but answered, “I’m just glad you’re talking about it, Sara.”

“So no froyo?”

“Yes, froyo.”

-

After a few months had passed, Sara fell into a sort of routine. Her drama practices and soccer practices are taking up most of her time, and anything not poured into those was left so that she had at least all decent grades for her classes. Her friends were accommodating as Sara tried to juggle what seemingly seemed like ten thousand things in her hands. They helped Sara in whatever way they could, and Sara knew that after the whole play was over with she would have to thank her friends a whole bunch.

Ava was not entirely different, even though she didn’t have to juggle another sport under her wings, Sara knew that she was working hard to keep her grades perfect to defend her valedictorian candidacy. They relished in the quiet moments they got in the practices in the rare moments that Sara wasn’t needed or in the breaks that they got.

There was really not many reasons that Sara needed to keep seeing Ava after she had gotten the script memorized. Slowly, their milkshake hangout times were becoming less frequent as Sara was needed more in the stage instead of sitting around idly. Ava was also hauled into making sets and taking in cues from the director. 

And in hindsight she should’ve known that her friendship with Ava would come crashing because of her unrequited feelings. There were too many close moments for Sara, too many where she could’ve just told Ava how she felt.

Just last week in her dressing room, Sara was trying to put on her costume but it was proving to be quite difficult as it was clearly sewn to be fitted on a guy frame instead of a girl’s. She noticed someone coming in through the mirror and was about to go hide in the showers but stopped when she noticed it was just Ava again.

She regretted the minute she didn’t though because once Ava saw her in her half zipped top, boxers and brown leggings in her hand with Peter Pan’s accessories thrown about the room, she started to giggle.

“Shut up.” Sara blushed.

“I get it, costumes are hard. I’m going to need to teach you how to quick change.” Ava stopped giggling but her smile was still evident on her face.

“This fucking costume is going to be the death of me.” Sara cursed as she attempted to zip up the back of her green top.

“Here, if you’d let me-” Ava grabbed her top and Sara released it from her grip.

“I got it Ava, you don’t need to-” 

“Sara, let me help you-”

 

“No, Ava-”

Both of them struggled with each other for a few seconds before Ava finally gave up and stared at Sara disapprovingly, “Fine, don’t accept my help. I don’t care.” 

Sara puffed out a breath and looked at Ava dejectedly after fiddling with her costume with no progress. “Okay.”

“What?” 

“Avawillyoupleasehelpmewearthisstupidcostume.” Sara muttered fast under her breath.

“Sorry I can’t hear you, what was that Lance?” Ava put her hand behind her ear and bent down to Sara’s height.

Sara glared at her but hid a smile, “Ava-will-you-please-help-me-wear-this-stupid-costume?” She repeated louder.

“Still can’t hear you, just a little louder.” Ava laughed.

“Asshole, just please help me put it on.” 

“That’s what I thought.” 

Sara sighed and turned her back to Ava, Ava slotted herself on Sara’s back and started to zip up her costume but stopped halfway. Sara looked to the mirror in front of her to see Ava brushing her hair to the side.

“Oh sorry my hair’s in the way,” Sara said as she made a move to tie it.

“It’s fine I got it,” Ava smiled and took Sara’s hair and laid it down on Sara’s left shoulder. 

Sara shivered at the contact of Ava’s hand on her bare shoulder and tried her best to hide it. But it was proving to be quite difficult as Ava kept her hand on the space between Sara’s neck and shoulder to keep her steady. 

She made the mistake of making eye contact with Ava in the mirror when she looked up. Sara bit her lip and Ava smiled lightly as she finished zipping up her shirt.

It felt like forever until Sara cleared her throat and stepped forward away from Ava, “Thanks, I couldn’t… reach it.” 

“No problem, it’s kind of my job,” Ava said as she also took a step back. 

Sara was sure she was blushing hard but didn’t want Ava to notice so she excused herself to go to the showers to change into the brown leggings that she still had in her hands. Once she had changed, she found Ava still in the room with the belt that she’s supposed to wear on one hand and Peter Pan’s hat on her other hand.

“I can wear those myself,” Sara said as she held her hand out for Ava to give them to her, “I’m sure you have set stuff to do.” 

“Well-” Ava jerked her hands away from Sara, “-what’s good about being stage manager is that you have rookies to do the unimportant set stuff,” 

Ava twirled her finger to tell Sara to turn around, Sara smirked and did as she was told. 

“Are you sure you’re not just lazy?” Sara teased as Ava was fitting her belt on her waist. 

Upon hearing the comment, Ava pulled her belt tightly causing Sara to gasp.

“Ow, you jerk.” Sara laughed as Ava released the tight hold and slapped Ava on the arm mildly.

“I’m the one helping you into your costume, and somehow I’m the lazy one?” 

“I said I could do it by myself!” Sara retorted and turned when Ava was finished putting her belt on.

“Pardon me for not believing you the first time you said that.”

“Well you’re pardoned madam,” Sara mocked in her Peter Pan voice as Ava laughed loudly.

All the while they were bantering, Sara felt the familiar sensation in her stomach turn. The feeling of Ava being in such close proximity with her that has her stomach doing backflips. She knows that Ava isn’t lazy, in fact far from it but Sara would give anything to make Ava laugh like this. 

“And now for your hat.” Ava grabbed the hat from the nearby table when they finished laughing.

Sara stood close to Ava and nodded her head down to give Ava access to put her hat on. Sara felt the weight of the hat being put on her head and once it was on, she moved her head back and looked at Ava. 

She hadn’t realized that they were standing so close to each other, Ava’s hands are still on the sides of her head and with the added height advantage Sara had to look up to see her.

Ava was staring at her intently, she looked like she had something to say but didn’t want to at the same time. Sara couldn’t help but flicker her eyes at Ava’s lips for a second and she’s sure that Ava didn’t miss her eyes looking there as well.

Sara’s heart was thrumming in her chest, a part of her wanting to just kiss Ava right then and there but the other part said to be rational and not ruin their friendship because of it. She might back out on tonight if she does.

Just then there was a knock on her dressing room door that caused them to break apart. 

“Who is it?” Sara asked loud enough so the person outside of the door could hear.

“It’s Gary! They said they want you out there in two minutes, Sara,” 

“Okay, I’ll be ready by then,” 

“Okay! And um, have you seen Ava perchance? Mr. Woodwick wants to confirm something with her.” 

“I’m here, Gary. Tell Woodwick I’ll be out there soon.” 

“Oh hi, Ava! And alright, will do.”

Sara saw Ava rolling her eyes at Gary and she turned around to face the mirror again. 

“Well, thank you for helping me with my costume,” Sara said.

“Anytime Lance.” Ava smiled, “We should probably get out there.”

“You go first, I’m gonna clean my stuff up a bit,”

“Okay,” 

And with that, Ava left her changing room. Sara breathed out a sigh and groaned internally. She doesn’t know if Ava felt the same way she did just moments ago when Sara felt the need to kiss her. 

“Pull it together Sara.” Sara lightly slapped herself to break out of her daydreaming.

There’s no way Ava would like someone like her. 

But things didn’t come easy for Sara. She shouldn’t have let Ava come into her house and drank, she shouldn’t have enthused the idea in the first place but when Ava had said, “God, these practices make me so tired. I feel like I need to get blackout drunk to just sleep it off,” 

She used her muscles to stretch in front of Sara, there was no logical workings in her brain when she turned to her and contemplated on her words saying, “That’s not actually a bad idea.”

“Sara.” Ava warned. 

And how Sara should’ve listened to that warning.

“No, not like sneaking into a bar thing. Why don’t we just drink at my house? My dad has hundreds of bottles, I’m sure he won’t notice if we take one or two,” 

Ava looked at her as if she was trying to decide if Sara was being serious or not.

“Come on, Aves,” Sara smiled.

“Well, as long as we don’t leave your house.”

“You could sleepover, no one will know,” 

“I can’t believe I’m actually agreeing to this,”

Sara smirked and patted Ava’s shoulder, “Tonight then? Come see me afterwards,” 

Ava nodded and laughed a bit, probably only realizing what she had gotten herself into. Sara left her on the bleachers to go get ready for rehearsal.

The rest of the rehearsal went okay, Sara was mostly distracted about what she had just suggested but there was no way in backing out now. The others had noticed her jitteriness and even the director called it quits when he had sensed that Sara wasn’t focusing. Immediately when the director uttered those words, Sara raced to her dressing room to change and Ava came by after she was done.

“Hey, ready to go get drunk?”

“With you? Not so much.” 

Sara scoffed and put a hand on her heart in mock offense, Ava just laughed but took the hand that was on Sara’s chest and held on to it as they left the art building.

Sara didn’t need to think twice when she let Ava take her hand. 

Ava drove her home, and Sara breathed a sigh of relief when she didn’t see her dad’s car in the driveway or garage. She went into the kitchen and took out two bottles of alcohol that she’s sure her dad won’t notice will be gone and went to meet Ava in her room.

She saw Ava’s eyes move to the bottle she held in her hands almost nervously as soon as she closed her door. 

“Hey, we don’t have to do this, you know that right?” Sara asked again.

“It’s not my first time getting drunk, Sara. I want to do this,” Ava answered.

Sara took one more glance at Ava to make sure she wasn’t lying to her, but Ava grabbed the bottle from Sara’s hands and Sara nodded then. She took the first sip and Ava followed as well with her bottle. They settled on Sara’s bed leaning against the wall. 

“Want to play a game?” Sara asked.

“LIke chess or?”

Sara turned her whole body to look at Ava with a disappointed face, “Chess, really?”

“You said a game!” Ava defended.

“I meant like twenty questions or something, you’re such a nerd.” Sara laughed and pulled away when Ava moved to hit her.

“Well if I’m a nerd, you’re a freaking jerk,” Ava huffed and took another swig from her bottle, “But yeah, we can play twenty questions if you want,”

“Okay, I’ll start, what’s your favorite animal?” 

“Seriously?”

“I’m serious!”

Ava rolled her eyes and answered, “Cats.”

Sara grimaced and took another sip from her bottle, “Ew.”

“Let me guess, you’re a dog person.” Ava said.

“I mean cats are fine, but not my preference.” Sara explained, “My favorite animal are canaries,” 

“Do birds count though?”

Sara was in the middle of taking a sip when she stopped Ava with her hand, “We’re not getting deep after just the first question, Aves.” 

Ava hummed at Sara’s comment.

They continued to ask each other mindless questions and Sara saw Ava get more drunk by each question that they go through. 

“Okay, my turn to ask again,” Sara slurred and looked to the ceiling to think of a question.

“Come on, Lance, we haven’t got all night,”

“I’m thinking.” She looked at the clock on her bedside table and smiled, “Oh! If you could travel through time, what would you do or see?”

“Sober me would have a good answer, but drunk me says-“ Ava hiccuped, “-I wanna see Genghis Khan,”

“Genghis Khan huh?” Sara giggled as she took another sip from her bottle, “Any particular reason?”

“Just fascinated with the time period I guess,” Ava shrugged mimicking Sara and taking another sip.

“Hello, I’m Ava Sharpe and I’m uh fascinated with Genghis Khan,” Sara mocked Ava.

“Don’t make fun of me you dinghead,”

“Wait, what was that? What’d you call me?” Sara laughed, “ A ding what,”

Ava laughed with her and made a move to hit Sara but it ended up with her hand just running down Sara’s thigh, “Shut up, I’m drunk.”

“I can tell,” Sara was hyperaware now that Ava’s hand is on her knee and has no intention of moving it, “Now I get why you didn’t drink at Gary’s party.”

“Hmm, and why is that?” Ava asked with her eyes closed and her head very close to Sara’s shoulder.

“You have a very low tolerance, Sharpe,”

“Shut up,” Ava tightened her hold on Sara’s knee while Sara continued to laugh.

Ava asked her more normal but funny questions and Sara’s grateful. Their answers eventually became languid and slowed, Sara could see that Ava was drunk by the time she asked their eighteenth question. And then it was down to Ava’s last question.

“Who do you have a crush on?” Ava smiled as if she’d thought of the most inventive question to ask Sara. Sara knew that Ava probably won’t remember this part of the conversation, she’s way to gone, while Sara is way too observant of what’s going on around her. 

She knows that Ava is sitting way too close to her, their thighs are touching and they’re almost shoulder to shoulder with each other. And Ava’s bottle that’s nearly empty is threatening to fall off her fingertips.

Although Sara’s also nearing drunk, her voice sounds normal but also far away from okay.

“Promise you won’t tell this to anyone?” Sara whispered, and if Ava was sober she would’ve gave Sara a serious answer but this Ava just raised her pinky finger and mumbled a slurred ‘promise’. Which is a good enough answer for Sara.

“There’s something- someone, god, that I want,” Sara’s voice cracked with nervous laughter, and although Ava’s drunk she tightened her grip on Sara’s hand. “I’m such a fucking idiot.”

“Who do you want?” Ava asked attempting to be in the conversation.

“Someone to want me, want me so much that they can’t breathe.”

And it’s Sara who can’t breathe because Ava is so close to her. She _goddamn_ wishes that she could give Ava her breathlessness, how she’s struck out of air every time Ava so much even touches her. She’s sure she could make breathlessness feel like heaven for Ava, she feels so sure of that.

“You don’t have that?” Ava whispers and that question somehow doesn’t make sense, but Sara can tell Ava is trying. 

“I don’t know.” Sara laughed a little dryly. The back of her throat feels dry and she doesn’t know if it’s the alcohol or if it’s Ava. 

“I think- _hic_ -you’d know if you had? Have? a cliche highschool romance, Sara,” Ava said dragging out the ‘r’ in Sara’s name, “It’s like the play- _hic_ -is like Peter Pan!”

And she can feel Ava’s pride in that revelation coursing through her because of their still joint hands. Sara fixates on their hands and suddenly she’s feeling too much,

“Yeah, you’d think so,” Sara tears her hand away from Ava’s, and she knows if Ava was sober she would wonder if she’d said something wrong. 

But right now Ava’s hand stayed on her knee, limp and unmoving. Sara knew that Ava is a master of reading body language and Sara’s really regretting at not having this conversation while sober because Ava would know the anxiety that’s pouring off of Sara.

“I’d think so, what?” Ava asked and Sara can’t bring herself to look at her, she keeps her eyes averted away from her, from her hands, choosing to just look ahead.

“I think… I mean. It’s me that they don’t want. I can feel it, you know, like, what’s that word, unrequited? They don’t want me. And sometimes I feel like I’m so broken for them… It’s not-”

“You’re not broken,” Ava interrupted, “You’re so whole.” 

Sara laughed and maybe her eyes feel a little damp because Ava definitely doesn’t know that she’s talking about her. She laughed because Ava is the most beautiful person she’d ever seen, and contrary to popular belief, beautiful girls sometimes short circuit Sara’s brain and that topped with alcohol, she can’t even begin to put into words what she’s trying to say.

Ava’s hands have somehow found hers again, and in that drunkenness haze it’s still Ava. It’s Ava who intertwined their fingers and held her hand tight.

“I just…” Sara breathed in deeply, she knows she’s blinking too fast, “What do you do when you think you’ve found someone? And they don’t want- I guess- want you.”

There’s a moment of silence and Sara thought that Ava had fallen asleep, and in that moment she knew that she may never recover from this. 

Just as Sara was about to move Ava to a more comfortable sleeping position, she asked, “Who is it?”

“It’s… god, I-” Sara stuttered.

She feels as though everything she’s held in about her feelings had shattered. When she closed her eyes, the broken pieces slowly made their way up to Sara’s mind and a painful motion of each of her missed interactions with Ava flowed through her brain. 

“It’s okay, Sara.”

“It’s like, I don’t- I don’t want to be wrong, Aves, I can’t put it it into words, I can’t-”

She lets herself drown in the alcohol she’s consuming. While she chugged, Ava’s hand moved from the place on her knee around her back and to her shoulder. She moved Sara to lie against her and Sara’s fighting back tears behind her bottle, and all she could think about was how Ava smelled like peaches.

“Are you close to this person?”

Sara bit her tongue to prevent herself from doing something she’d regret, so she just nodded and relished in the warmth that Ava is giving her. 

“I’m so torn.” She murmured, her lips still on the bottle.

“You might not know this, Sara, but- _hic_ -that person might feel the same way, you’ll never know if you don’t tell them,” 

Sara clenched her fists and closed her eyes shut, she reminded herself that Ava won’t remember this conversation. That whatever advice Ava is giving her is clouded by the alcohol she had.

“It’s you, Ava.” Sara whispered and suddenly she’s choking back a sob, “I’m sorry, god, I’m so sorry, Ava. Please don’t hate me- please. I know you don’t feel- feel the same way, I just-”

Sara fought from Ava’s hold on her and curled into a ball away from Ava. She can feel Ava move closer despite what she had just said. 

“Don’t say that.” 

Sara looked up and she’s out of breath, she felt like she’s drowning in her unshed tears. And _screw_ alcohol for making her feel like this. 

“What?” Her body is shaking from suppressed sobs.

“Of course I don’t hate you, Sara, I’m not the same person I was last year,” Ava said, she’s kneeling over Sara not touching her but waiting for Sara to give her permission. 

She straightened her legs and uncurled herself, that seemed to give Ava indication that she’s free to hold Sara again. In the back of Sara’s mind, she knows this position must be uncomfortable for Ava but she doesn’t say anything. 

After a while Ava let go and smiled softly at her, “Let’s just go to sleep.” 

“Yeah.” 

They rearrange themselves so Sara is in between the wall and Ava, they move inside Sara’s covers and Sara fell asleep in Ava’s arms.

-

In the morning, Sara woke up with a splitting headache. She’s first aware of her headache, then she’s aware of the arms around her. 

Her memories of last night came crashing down on her and she sighed defeatedly. She royally fucked up and now she’s betting on the alcohol being strong enough to rid Ava of the memories that she’s bearing.

She turned around and faced the still sleeping Ava, Sara took a moment to admire her. She then untangled herself from Ava and carefully moved over her to get to her floor. She rubbed her head and went to the bathroom to brush her teeth and then to her kitchen to grab two glasses of water.

When she came back from the kitchen, Ava was sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

“Hey, you’re awake,” Sara said nervously wanting to know how she should approach the situation.

“Yea, my head hurts,” Ava massaged her temples and Sara moved to hand her a glass of water. 

She opened her bedside drawer and took out a bottle of aspirin, she gave two to Ava and swallowed two for herself. 

“Well, last night was…” Ava didn’t finish her sentence.

Sara sat beside her but left a considerable amount of space incase Ava did remember what she said. 

“I know right,”

“I don’t remember anything past when you asked me the thing about cartoons,”

Sara’s eyes widened and hid the smile on her face, “That early? That was like our fifteenth question or something,”

“It’s weird, but I remember you crying, did that happen?”

“I don’t know,” Sara averted her gaze.

“Liar, you remember everything don’t you? I never should’ve drank with you,” Ava shook her head but stopped because of her headache.

“Yeah, we really shouldn’t have drank together.” Sara said but for an entirely different reason. 

She could sense Ava giving her a sideways glance but hid it with a smirk and an offhand comment about how she was a lightweight. 

When Ava went home two hours later after saying that her headache has mostly subsided, Sara immediately called Amaya to tell her what happened last night. Amaya came to her house less than half an hour later and Sara poured everything to her best friend. 

She recounted how she almost screwed their friendship and how she would’ve never have recovered if Ava remembered that conversation. She told her how she felt so torn and that Ava didn’t react to it, didn’t say she liked her back. 

Amaya listened intently to her and helped Sara avoid Ava for the week despite being against the idea. Amaya told her that avoiding her feelings wasn’t healthy, she brought up how the last time she avoided her feelings only ended in a disaster. But Sara had insisted that she didn’t want to face it, she knew that Ava would eventually remember, and if not, she would guess what had happened and it’s in their best interest for Sara to not be there when that happened.

A whole week passed and Sara successfully only interacted with Ava maybe once or twice during the week, making up lame excuses or having Amaya take her away from the situation. Sara knew that Friday was the opening day of the play and like it or not, she was going to have to talk with Ava but she focused on the play first. 

When Sara was running lines for the last time until the play started, Ava had found her. 

“Ava, I’m memorizing lines,” 

“You’ve memorized for the better part of four months now, you’ll be fine.”

“Please, I need to get this scene down.” 

“Fine, but please, find me after the play?”

Sara looked at her and Ava’s eyes only held sincerity, she nodded and Ava left her alone again.

It’s when Sara realized that this was the real deal that she began to panic. She didn’t know why she was worrying now, but she remembered that for the past few months Ava had constantly reassured her that she was going to be alright as they have gone to practice after practice and memorizing line after line just for Sara to do well. 

And, fuck, how could Sara think she was okay when she had been purposefully avoiding Ava and not letting her help her anymore? She remembered the way they sat impossibly close in Sara’s dressing room or the times she would sneak glances off-stage to Ava as Ava mouthed lines that she would forget to her and her soft smile that would always leave Sara reeling on stage.

Sara shook her head and focused on the tattered script book in front of her, she can’t have anything distract her now. She had a play to do. 

When she went on stage and faced the crowd, she didn’t know how much of a nerve-wracking situation it’d be. She looked offstage for a moment and saw Ava smiling at her giving her a thumbs up, and somehow that gave her the courage to perform. Because part of her knows that she couldn’t have done this without her and she wanted to let Ava know that she could do it. 

Now, six hours later, at two am in the night when they were resetting everything for the next night, Sara is on the borderline of tired and stressed and it was at that exact moment that Sara was suddenly reminded on one of Ray’s anecdotes: when a body stops breathing, brain death will approximately occur within six minutes.

Which Sara knows can’t be true now because she has been holding her breath for about six hours. 

And, okay, she also knows, that’s impossible but it’s felt like that to her.

She kept her promise to Ava and eventually led her out into the hallway, leaning on the walls, private enough where they could talk, and public enough so Gary could still call them if they’re done. 

Their heads are resting on the walls of the hallway, where Sara can finally relax. And Sara has never thought that such feelings like hers right now existed. She never gave thought to how the lights of the school hallway could accentuate a person so much.

The Peter Pan costume, the fact that it’s past midnight, the languor she’s feeling, the mix of classic/jazz from the gym beside her, it somehow made her feel like she’s part of some absurd, unrealistic scene in a cliche play of her own. Her elbow is touching Ava’s elbow, and her head could almost touch hers, Sara felt so close to her - almost _too_ close. The hallway beside them is unnervingly quiet, save for the music, like something’s missing within the heart. 

And - oh - Ava’s saying something to her. When she turned her head to Sara, she knew that Ava probably expected a response.

But all Sara could see was her eyes, how the twinkles in them could hold a whole universe inside.

She can’t breathe. 

And she just wants to be able to, to breath and not feel a tight grip in her chest and the palpitations of her heart on her throat. Somewhere in the back of her mind, maybe she’s aware that Ava asked a question. And that maybe her only response is a hum. But maybe she also doesn’t know what’s what anymore.

Ray’s voice played in the back of her mind saying, “You know, Sara, the world record for holding of breath underwater is precisely 22.22 minutes,” Sara had to hold back a laugh because she half wants to prove to Ray that hasn’t breathed for six and a half hours. She wonders if oxygen deprivation was a legitimate concern for her.

Ava has taken off her shoes, leaving them somewhere on the stage, and she’s pulled her hoodie back from her head. She’d tipped her head back, blinking slowly at the fluorescent neon lights. And Sara thought about one line of her play ‘what if you fly?’ and Sara fantasised about breathing. 

“You were great on stage just now.” Ava’s words were edged with something sharp, finally piercing Sara’s stupor.

“Thanks.” Sara replied.

“Sara, I know this isn’t really the best time to have this conversation but do you remember what you said last week?” Ava asked and there were three inches between their hands. And suddenly, there’s none at all. Because Ava was holding her hand, entwining their fingers. Sara looked down. 

And how could Sara forget such a conversation like that? It was too vulnerable for Sara to handle. She opened up to Ava and let her know how she felt. 

“Yeah, I do. Do you remember?”

“I remember bits and pieces, I remember me consoling you about what you said but I don’t remember what exactly you said,”

“It was stupid, don’t worry about it,” Sara laughed and turned away from Ava.

“It’s not stupid, Sara, I want to know what you said because I remember asking who you like,”

_ilikeyouilikeyouilikeyouilikeyouilikeyouilikeyou_

Sara bit her lip and there’s no alcohol to cover her tracks now, “Ava, I’m sorry.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” Ava asked exasperatedly, “What did you do? I know you didn’t do anything wrong, was it me?”

“God, no. It’s me, I just- I can’t repeat what I said. It’s for the best.”

“The best for who? For me? Sara, I need to know what I said or what you said, it’s killing me.”

And if Ava could know that Sara has been slowly destroying herself for it too.

“You haven’t been the same since then, you avoid me and can’t look me in the eyes and purposefully don’t go to where I am, and you even go the other way when you see me in the halls, if you don’t think that I’m hurting over this, Sara, you’re wrong.”

“Damn it, Ava, just let it go.” Sara bounced off the wall and made her way to the gym but Ava caught her wrist and Sara wanted to so badly break their hold but one part of her doesn’t, and she’s chose to listen to that part.

“Sara.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t hate you, Sara.” 

Sara sighed and took her hand back, she opened the gym door and quietly said, “I know.” 

The next night of the play, Sara was a mess. She’d forgotten lines and left her cast members with a disappointed look on their faces by the time intermission came. She knows it’s partly because she hurt Ava’s feelings but she truly felt that it’s better if Ava didn’t know what she said at all. 

Sara begged her mind to remember her lines, to not screw it up for the rest of the cast again. She knew she did better but it wasn’t her best, at least the rest of the cast was somewhat pleased. 

Her eyes found Ava’s as Ava was helping to reset the play again, she gave her a soft smile but Ava was the one to turn her away. And now Sara felt it, felt the hurt.

“Uh Sara,” Someone tapped her shoulder and forced her to look away from Ava.

Gary stood there with a nervous look on his face. Sara sighed and expected that he was the one chosen to tell Sara how badly she did on the night’s performance but surprisingly that wasn’t what he said at all.

“I know you don’t mean it, and it’s not in my place at all to tell you what to do but Ava’s my friend, my best friend actually and she’s really hurt by what you did,” 

“She told you that?”

Gary nodded and Sara turned her head again to watch Ava but she was gone from the place she was at before.

“Ava was the one who got me and Constantine together you know,” Gary said, “I’m just trying to return the favor,”

“I don’t-” _Lie._ “It’s not like that, Gary,” 

“I believe it is, I mean, if tonight’s performance was any indication then it really is,” Gary pointed out.

Sara sighed and gave a curt nod to Gary, “I’ll see you later.”

“I just care about her, Sara. I don’t like seeing her hurt, trust me, coming to you was probably my last resort. Being with you made her happy, makes her happy!”

“I’m walking away now, Gary,” Sara said as she left him and tried to find Ava.

She found Ava in front of her dressing room standing against the wall beside the door. 

“Ava,” Sara said in surprise, not expecting to find her there, “Were you waiting for me?”

When Ava didn’t answer, Sara opened the door of her dressing room and Ava closed it when both of them were inside. 

“Did I do something wrong that night?” Ava asked.

“No, Ava, you did nothing wrong.” Sara repeated as she began to take off her Peter Pan accessories. 

“So why? Why have you been avoiding me?” Ava pressed. 

“It’s my fault, I’m sorry. Can we just move on, please?” Sara turned around and pleaded with her body.

Ava sighed, “Fine, you win, I’ll let it go,”

Sara looked at Ava hopefully and breathed out, “Thank y-”

“On one condition,” Ava interjected as she bore her eyes to Sara’s, “You tell me who it is.”

“Ava-”

“I won’t speak a word about that night again if you just tell me who it is, Sara. You told me once, why won’t you do it again? I just don’t get why-”

“It’s you, okay? It’s you!” Sara exclaimed.

Ava took a step back at Sara’s outburst, and suddenly Sara was feeling too much. She felt the unshed tears behind her eyes as she waited for the oncoming rejection and hatred that would overcome Ava’s face. She turned away and held back her tears as best she could. This was the exact reason why she didn't want to tell Ava, that she didn't need Ava to know.

“Please leave, I need to change.” 

“Sara-,”

“You promised to not say anything else, just please, Ava,” Sara whispered not wanting to look back at her.

She thought that Ava might fight back, part of her wanted Ava to fight back but she didn’t. Sara heard the sound of the dressing room door closing behind her, and it was then that Sara cried. 

She threw her clothes off and hung it up as fast as she could, wanting to get out of there as possible. The tears stopped coming as Sara forced herself to not cry in front of all the cast, crew and guests that came. After going out of her dressing room, she paced as fast as she could without it looking weird to go out of the gym.

Just before she reached the gym door, she heard a familiar voice call her name. She turned around and tried to find the source.

“Sara?” It was then she saw her dad a few feet away from her holding a single flower. 

She gasped and ran to her dad, hugging him as if her life depended on it. 

“Whoa there, hey sweetie, glad to see you too,”

Sara laughed and couldn’t hold back her tears anymore as she cried on her dad’s shoulder. She was grateful that they were in somewhat a secluded part of the gym where not many guests were crowding in. 

When Sara finished, she looked up at her dad, “I didn’t know you would show,”

“I promised I would,”

Sara smiled and somehow cried harder to his chest. Her dad managed to move them to a corner where no one was at, and Sara was grateful.

“What’s this about?” He asked when Sara reduced her crying to just sniffling.

“I did something stupid.”

“What did you do?”

“Something stupid.” Sara bit her lip to prevent anymore tears.

“I know I get that it was stupid, buttercup. But what was the stupid thing that you did?” Her dad rubbed small circles on her back.

“Take me home,” Sara whispered. 

Quentin didn’t say anything more, instead he led Sara to his car and drove her home. On the ride home, Sara knew she would have to come clean to her dad. One part of her was happy that she could get the chance of telling her dad about her life, she missed talking with him, but the other part was worried about what he would say.

As soon as they reached home, Sara dropped herself on the couch and waited for her dad to take a seat before resting against him. 

“Do you want to talk now?”

Sara nodded but she didn’t know where to start, “I don’t know how to explain it,”

“Start with telling me what you did,”

“I told someone I liked them,”

“Who?”

“Ava.”

When Sara said her name out loud she burrowed deeper into her dad and the couch trying to hide herself.

“And why was that stupid?”

“Because she doesn’t like me back,”

“Did she tell you that?” 

“She didn’t have to.”

Her dad sighed and pulled Sara all the way on his lap to lay between him and the arm of the couch. That gave him a clear view of Sara’s face and Sara felt like she was one of the criminals that he was interrogating. 

“Sara, I agree, what you did was stupid.”

Sara scrunched her face, “Thanks, dad! Real reassuring.”

“But I’m not talking about you confessing, I’m talking about you assuming and thinking you know what someone’s feeling before even talking to them about it.” 

“It’s not assuming if you know it’s true,”

“But that’s just it, you don’t know if it’s true.” Her dad ran a hand through her hair and sighed once more, “I’ve seen you do it with me, with Laurel, with your friends,”

“I don’t-”

“Don’t deny it, Sara.” Quentin looked at her, “You need to give this Ava fellow a chance, a chance to tell you how she feels, not what you think she feels.”

“But I’m scared,”

“Why?”

“I’m scared that if I know how she truly feels, it would ruin me, ruin our friendship. At least with this, I can still have hope, I can still act.” Sara explained.

“That isn’t fair to her, Sara. She deserves to have a chance to tell you how she feels,”

“Doubt she’s going to though,” Sara sniffed, “She promised that she wouldn’t say anything if I told her I liked her,”

“If that’s what she wants to do, then so be it. But if there’s a chance that she’s willing to talk to you again, you have to let her, okay?”

“Yea, okay.” 

“Alright,”

They sat there quietly for a while and Sara felt safe for the first time in a long time. She searched for clarity from her friends, from herself too at times but she didn’t know that it would come from her dad. She fell asleep when her dad turned on the TV to watch a show that he knew Sara had no interest in to make her sleep.

The next morning when Sara woke up, she checked her phone and found a text from Ava.

[Ava]: Good morning. I’ll see you later today?  
[Sara]: i mean i do have this play thing to do so yeaaa  
[Ava]: Alright, jerk. See you soon. 

Sara was nervous, Ava seemed vague with her texts. She didn’t know if Ava was affected the same way that Sara was last night when she revealed it to her but if Ava was going to drop everything completely, she would let her.

With a final text, she sent an okay and a thumbs up then went about her morning to get ready for the night.

\----

When she saw Ava again, she seemed unphased and acted normally around Sara. Though now there was the undeniable feeling of them being too close to each other and watching where their hands go. Sara knew it would happen, and she would try again for Ava, to relearn how to be friends again. 

Her friends learned what happened and a lot of them were disappointed that she and Ava didn’t get a happy ending but Sara was mostly just grateful that their friendship wasn’t completely ruined. 

The first part of the play went well, there was nothing distracting Sara anymore and she performed the play like a rehearsed routine. 

She didn’t expect anything when she returned to her dressing room during intermission. She was sitting there taking deep breaths when the door suddenly opened. Ava came in frantically and she stood up from her chair.

“Ava what’re you doing-“

“I’m sorry but I can’t just let this go. The play’s ending and I might never get the chance to say this anymore so hear me out,”

Sara stared at her and didn’t say anything as a sign for Ava to continue.

“The past few weeks, well, months actually, you’ve just slotted yourself in my life and I find myself not knowing what to do because you’re all you and confident and then we had that conversation that night and I realized, Sara, I realized _I’m_ the person you talked about, was me,”

“Yea, I-”

“Let me finish- when I realized that it was me, I was so scared, Sara. Because you confessed and I was too drunk and maybe I said something to set you off like I gave the impression I didn’t like you back because I was trying to hide it for so long,”

“You were-”

“Then you started ignoring me, and I thought I did something wrong, that’s why I wanted to talk to you because I beat myself up over it.”

“Aves.” Sara whispered and took a step closer to Ava.

“Then last night, I didn’t know what to do with myself, you confessed again but then you wanted me to leave and I don’t know what to do and I know I promised to let it go but I can’t Sara- I need- I want-”

Ava sighed and Sara stepped in front of her, “What’re you trying to say?”

“I like you too, Sara.” Ava whispered, she hesitated to put her hands on the sides of Sara’s face but did so anyway. 

Sara stared into Ava’s eyes and leaned into her touch, her confession struck her by surprise and she also didn’t know what to do. 

“I like you so much that sometimes I can’t control myself around you and I swear you’re not the only one who feels it too, I don’t know how or why and can I just-“ Ava paused. 

“Can you just?” 

“May I kiss you?” Ava whispered.

Sara didn’t trust her words so she nodded instead. Her eyes closed voluntarily and leaned in. Ava met her halfway and Sara’s brain short circuited. She felt sparks go off throughout her whole body, she put her hands on Ava’s upper arm to steady herself to deepen their kiss. 

She thought that nothing else mattered other than kissing the girl in front of her, forgetting that there’s a second act of the play that she still needed to perform.

Ava breathed in and Sara melted into her. Sara felt Ava move away a bit and Sara whimpered softly chasing her lips back. Ava smiled into the kiss and only changed positions for Sara to be more comfortable kissing her. They kissed until Sara felt dizzy, and she could feel the numbness bursting over her lips. They kissed until Sara could know nothing but the taste of Ava’s lips on her own. They kissed until-

“Peter Pan!” A voice from outside the girls’ dressing room sounded.

The voice caused Ava to pull back and Sara let her this time but she didn’t open her eyes. She felt Ava’s hand on her cheek gently stroking it, “They’re looking for you.”

Sara sighed and finally opened her eyes, she found Ava staring at her softly, “Do I have to?”

Ava giggled and put her hand that was on her cheek to her shoulder, “Yes, we’ll talk later.”

“Where the fuck is Sara? Act two is starting in two minutes!” 

Suddenly, the dressing room door burst open and Zari came in saying, “Sara, what the hell are you doing? They’re looking for-”

Sara saw Zari gasp and assess the scene in front of her before smirking widely and clapping, “Did you two finally admit you want to be together?”

“Hi Zari,” Ava greeted as she stepped away from Sara.

“Tell them I’ll be out in a second,” Sara said as she pushed Zari out of the door not caring how a guest could’ve passed through backstage without being recognized.

“Okay, okay, but really, I’m happy for you cap!” Zari exclaimed as she closed the door.

Sara sighed and leaned against the door carefully as to not to disturb her costume. She looked wearily at Ava, and Ava gravitated towards her. 

Ava cupped her cheeks and kissed her against the door before promising again, “We’ll talk about it later.”

Sara nodded finding that none of the words she wanted to say to Ava are going to work, so she opened the door and readied herself to do her final act of the play. 

And this time, she knew she performed it with a new fervor. She knew Ava was watching and if it would please Ava that Sara did well in the play, she did so and she did so well.

When it was over, she found Ava backstage moving props around. Sara tapped Ava’s shoulder and Ava turned around to smile at Sara, “Hey, good job on the final performance.” 

“Lost a couple of lines at the end but I’m glad the cast was cooperative with my screw ups.” Sara led Ava back to her dressing room and closed the door.

“No, but you did really good. It was a good ending.”

“Thank you.”

“So…” Ava started awkwardly.

“Yea,” Sara clenched her teeth and pointed to her gym bag, “I’m going to change out of this first, sorry, it’ll just be a sec.” 

“Do you need me to undo the zipper?” Ava asked.

“Yes, please.” Sara answered.

Once Ava undid her costume, Sara changed in lightning fast speed, and met Ava back again outside of the shower. She stuffed her costume in her gym bag and looked back to Ava.

“So the kiss,” Sara said.

“Yeah.” Ava put her hands on the back of her neck and rubbed the skin there, Sara found the awkwardness nerve wracking so she stepped in front of Ava and kissed her.

When Ava kissed back, that gave Sara the confidence to say what she’d wanted to say months ago, “I like you Ava, I like you so much. And judging by the kiss, and tonight, I’m pretty sure you like me too. So-” Sara took a deep breath, “- Ava, will you go out with me?”

Ava smiled and nodded, “Yes, Sara. I’d love to.” 

Sara mimicked Ava’s smile and held Ava’s hand as they walked out of the dressing room together. As soon as Sara found her friends in one of the empty rooms, they fixate on Sara’s hand holding Ava’s and they whooped and hollered.

She tightened her hold on Ava’s fingers to assure her that it’s going to be okay.

“So are you guys together?” Nate asked when the cheering died down.

“Yes we are.” Sara answered while looking at Ava to silently ask if that was okay, she saw Ava jerk her head in a nod and turned back towards her friends.

“Congratulations captain,” Ray said and the whole group began cheering again as well. Amaya moved to hug Sara and she let go of Ava’s hand briefly to hug Amaya back, but Zari joined in too and it quickly became a dog pile on top of Sara.

“Ava, help me!” Sara choked out from under her friends, she heard Ava giggle but did nothing about it.

Eventually when Sara was really getting hard to breathe, she gently asked Amaya to move off of her and when Amaya moved, everyone else got off as well. Sara laid down on the ground and breathed in dramatically before Ava held a hand out for her, she took it and stood next to her.

“I never lose a bet.” Mick smirked as Sara slapped him upside the head.

“What bet?” Ava asked, clueless to what Mick is saying.

“Nothing, don’t worry about it.” Sara quickly said but that didn’t stop Ava to listen to Mick’s explanation about the bet.

“I’m happy for you Sara.” Amaya added while walking to Sara, “You’re so brave for finally realizing what you want.”

Sara didn’t miss the way Amaya looked wistfully at Zari who was currently giving Ray his ten dollars from the bet, “You can be brave too Amaya.” 

“Not yet.” Amaya whispered.

Sara’s eyes softened for her best friend. She hugged her and kissed the side of Amaya’s head, “Okay, whenever you’re ready. I’m here for you,” Sara whispered back.

“Me too, always,” 

When Sara broke the hug, she felt an arm slip on her waist and turned to find Ava beside her, “So the bet huh?”

“I don’t know how to feel about your friends betting on me,” 

“Too bad! We didn’t know how to feel about you either!” Nate exclaimed from his conversation with Wally on the other side of the room.

“Shut your face Nate!” Sara shouted back.

Ava giggled and pushed Sara’s waist to get them to face each other. Sara looked at Ava’s eyes and beamed, she couldn’t believe that she kissed her. And has the ability to kiss her whenever she wants because Ava liked her too. 

“I’m glad I did the play.” Sara stuffed her hands inside the pockets of Ava’s black hoodie. 

“I’m glad you did too,” Ava said as she put her hands inside her hoodie to hold Sara’s.

Sara giggled and used her hand to push up to kiss Ava, she briefly forgot where they were until a wolf-whistle sounded in the room and Sara had to bite back a curse.

“Get it cap,” Zari cheered.

They broke off and Sara took back her hands. She looked at Ava and saw that she was blushing a little bit and felt bad for kissing her in front of people she wasn’t close with.

“Okay, it’s past all y’alls bedtime. Go home before Gideon finds us in here, or better yet before I make you go home.”

A series of grumblings came from them but they all followed Sara’s direction anyway. They took their stuff from the room and slowly everyone left the room save for Sara and Ava.

“Sorry for kissing you in front of my friends like that,” Sara said sheepishly.

“It’s alright Sara, I didn’t mind. Maybe I could get to know them,”

Sara smiled at the prospect of Ava getting to know her best friends, “I’d like that.”

“Provided you also give Gary a chance.” Ava smirked.

“Gary?” Sara whined jokingly, “But he’s such a dweeb.”

“He’s my best friend, watch it.” Ava poked Sara’s stomach and leaned in close to her, “Just get to know him.”

“Okay, anything for you,” Sara scrunched her nose at what she said, “God, that was cheesy. Sorry,” 

“Stop saying sorry, weirdo. I like you being cheesy,” Ava said.

Sara put her arms around Ava’s neck and raised her eyebrows, “Oh really?” 

Ava nodded and connected their lips. Kissing Ava felt free, Sara got lost in the motions of Ava’s lips. She felt Ava’s hands on her back, one holding her on her neck and the other on her waist. And Sara was grateful that they’re there because kissing Ava made her knees feel weak and she’s sure that without Ava’s support she would’ve fallen.

They part moments later but Sara kept her hands on the back of Ava’s neck, putting her head on Ava’s collarbone. The past few weeks’ exhaustion was finally catching up to her because of the lack of adrenaline. Ava must’ve felt Sara’s energy drop because she only held Sara tighter, not letting her fall.

“You tired?”

Sara muttered a quiet, “Yeah,” And closed her eyes.

“I can drive you home if you’re too tired to drive back,” Ava suggested, “I can even drive your car if you want me to,”

“What about your car?” Sara asked tiredly.

“Gary came with John, I can ask Gary to follow us to your house and then I’ll switch cars at your house.”

Sara was considering that option but in the end shook her head as she stepped back from Ava, “No, that’s double work for you. I’ll be fine.” 

Ava looked concerned but didn’t ask again, “Okay, but text me when you’re home?”

“Of course.” Sara smiled.

That night as Sara was fending off sleep as she was texting Ava, her heart felt full for the first time in a while. She shouldn’t have kept it in long enough, but she wouldn’t want to have done it any other way either. She fell asleep with her phone clutched to her chest and an unread message from Ava that said, “Sweet dreams, Sara.”

-

It’s been two months after the production ended and Sara was happy. They were currently hanging out in Sara’s house after Sara’s softball game. Ava suggested that she slept over and they would have a movie night together, and really, who was Sara to decline her girlfriend. Sara still gets butterflies in her stomach everytime she refers to Ava as her girlfriend, it’s a reminder for Sara that Ava is special, she made her feel special.

“Hey babe, guess what’s on Disney Channel!” Ava shouted from Sara’s couch.

Sara hummed and replied, “What?” 

Instead of answering, Ava turned the volume all the way up so that Sara could hear the squeaky voice of the cartoon Peter Pan. 

Sara groaned in the middle of making her popcorn and said, “Turn that shit off.” 

She could hear Ava laugh but heard the TV’s volume going softer. Moments later, Sara jumped a bit but didn’t turn around when she felt hands around her waist and a head resting on her shoulder. 

“But I like Peter Pan.” Ava whined.

“I take offense to that,” Sara giggled as she twisted her face to plant a kiss on Ava’s lips. Ava hummed contently and the hands on Sara’s waist moved inside Sara’s tank top. 

“Don’t worry, there’s only one Peter Pan that I want to be with,” Ava said in between kisses.

“Yea and who’s that?”

“You.” 

Sara smiled at Ava’s answer and deepened their kiss as the soft song of Peter Pan played on the living room TV. 

End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know what you thought! :)

**Author's Note:**

> the next one should be up soon, thanks for reading :)


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